N.Y. General Business Law § 70: Private investigator license

§ 70. Private investigator license. 1. The department of state shall

have the power to issue licenses to private investigators. Nothing in

this article shall prevent a private investigator licensed hereunder

from performing the services of a watch, guard or patrol agency or bail

enforcement agent as defined herein; however, a watch, guard or patrol

agency or bail enforcement agent may not perform the services of a

private investigator as defined herein.

2. No person, firm, company, partnership, limited liability company or

corporation shall engage in the business of private investigator or

advertise his, their or its business to be that of private investigator

notwithstanding the name or title used in describing such agency or

notwithstanding the fact that other functions and services may also be

performed for fee, hire or reward, without having first obtained from

the department of state a license so to do, as hereinafter provided, for

each bureau, agency, sub-agency, office and branch office to be owned,

conducted, managed or maintained by such person, firm, company,

partnership, limited liability company or corporation for the conduct of

such business.

3. No person, firm, company, partnership, limited liability company or

corporation shall engage in the business of furnishing or supplying for

fee, hire or any consideration or reward information as to the personal

character or activities of any person, firm, company, or corporation,

society or association, or any person or group of persons, or as to the

character or kind of the business and occupation of any person, firm,

company or corporation, or own or conduct or maintain a bureau or agency

for the above mentioned purposes, except exclusively as to the financial

rating, standing, and credit responsibility of persons, firms, companies

or corporations, or as to the personal habits and financial

responsibility of applicants for insurance, indemnity bonds or

commercial credit or of claimants under insurance policies, provided the

business so exempted does not embrace other activities as described in

section seventy-one of this article, or except where such information is

furnished or supplied by persons licensed under the provisions of

section twenty-four-a or subdivision three-b of section fifty of the

workers' compensation law or representing employers or groups of

employers insured under the workers' compensation law in the state

insurance fund, without having first obtained from the department of

state, as hereafter provided, a license so to do as private investigator

for each such bureau or agency and for each and every sub-agency, office

and branch office to be owned, conducted, managed or maintained by such

persons, firm, limited liability company, partnership or corporation for

the conduct of such business. Nothing contained in this section shall be

deemed to include the business of adjusters for insurance companies, nor

public adjusters licensed by the superintendent of financial services

under the insurance law of this state.

4. Any person, firm, company, partnership or corporation who violates

any provision of this section shall be guilty of a class A misdemeanor.