On 16 December 2024, Belgium’s Private Investigations Act (the “PIA”) entered into force, replacing the Private Detectives Act of 1991. While this may sound like news for the detective industry only, the scope of the PIA is considerably wider. In fact, the most significant innovation in the PIA does not concern private detectives at all, but the companies that instruct them. Any business that conducts workplace investigations in-house may fall within the scope of the PIA and become subject to licensing requirements and procedural obligations.

In this first of three blogs, we set out the key provisions in the PIA and why internal workplace investigations may fall within its scope and the licensing requirements that follow.

What counts as a private investigation under the PIA?

The PIA defines private investigation activities by reference to four cumulative criteria. Such activities must:

• be carried out by a natural person;
• be undertaken on behalf of a principal;
• involve the gathering of intelligence obtained by the processing of information about natural or legal persons, or the circumstances concerning acts committed by them; and
• be carried out for the purpose of providing that intelligence to the principal, either to safeguard the principal’s interests in the context of an actual or potential conflict, or to trace missing persons or lost or stolen goods.

This definition is sufficiently broad to capture most internal investigations within companies. For example, when an...

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