Must you be a PI to fix computers in Texas?

I live in Texas and just learned this today — according to a few websites that interpret a recent bill passed by Texas lawmakers, if you fix someone else’s computer and you’re not a private investigator, you could be fined up to $4,000 and get a year in jail! And in order to become one, you’ve got to either get a criminal justice degree or become a PI apprentice for 3 years. Yeah right!

Gearlog, CW33, PC Magazine, the Institute for Justice, and The Daily Texan are all running stories that interpret a recently passed Texas law to mean that anyone who repairs computers must be licensed as a private investigator in the state of Texas.

Some comments under the articles suggest that this interpretation is stretching it, although this post from Post Process seems to more clearly illustrate the idea. It appears the idea comes from a clause that more clearly defines what an “investigations company” should be, and includes anyone who analyzes non-public computer data that relates to a criminal investigation. Whether this means that a computer repairer who stumbles across illegal file contents like child pornography, I’m not certain. However, as a former security alarm monitor, I know that many companies here locally analyze non-public, computer-based crime-related data. Those monitors are already licensed as security personnel from this site but I’m not cerain where the concept of being licensed as a private investigator comes from.

After doing a bit more scurrying about on the web, it appears the Institute for Justice mentioned earlier is going to challenge the law, according to another Post Process article. In yet another Post Process article, another business is challenging the ruling, in an attempt to clarify that someone who simply gathers computer data for repairs processes should not be considered an investigator in the criminal sense. It gets really murky in the legal-speak from there.

Citronix (a Houston-based computer repair fim) actually provides a decent level of coverage, citing various bits of the legal document itself and making the case for computer repair woes. Apparently the new law went into effect on September 1, 2007, and relatively few computer repair businesses were even aware of it.

On the other hand, computer nerds across Texas can now sigh in relief and reply, “Actually, [relative, neighbor, co-worker, etc], it may actually be illegal for me to do that now.”