Skip Tracing - Canada and the US

This blog is primarily intended for US lawyers and companies who are looking at getting skip tracing done in Canada. While most US law firms and companies are familiar with skip tracing rates and services in the United States, there are some major differences on how things are done in Canada.

Skip tracing is the art of locating individuals, companies and assets. Locating debtors who need to be served with legal documents, locating witnesses and locating liquid assets that can be garnisheed are just some of the types of skip tracing we do. Our skip tracers have decades of experience in tracing consumer and commercial entities in Canada.

Skip tracing in Canada requires far more expertise than the US as there are Privacy laws, regulations and restrictions that limit how certain types of information can be obtained. For example: Law firms and lawyers in Canada are not allowed to pull credit bureaus. Law firms in Canada are not allowed to store their data on US servers because of the Patriot Act in the US.

Canada and the US are very different when it comes to obtaining information. In the US there is basically no privacy and companies readily sell data to companies that consolidate personal and financial information. There are web sites in the US where extensive information is available at a cheap rate. If a company in Canada got caught selling some of this information there would be serious consequences with heavy fines.

Many American companies forget that Canada is a different country with much stricter privacy laws and regulations. This is also why average skip tracing rates in Canada are higher than the US, as information is harder and more expensive to obtain. For example: It is easier to search for property owned by a company, or individual, in the US on a national level. In Canada, the same information would require property searches in each province.

Because the Canadian Privacy Act is not conducive to consolidated information sellers, information must be obtained from many different sources. This is why skip tracing services in Canada are quoted with a price range, rather than a flat rate like in the US. Each trace is unique and may require multiple information sources.

Many of our American Clients originally came to us because their US tracing agency hit a brick wall and was unable to get the information they needed. In addition, In House Receivable Services is a licensed collection agency, which gives us access to some data bases that a standard skip tracing agency will never have.