Sunday, 6th July 2008
12°C (Adelaide)
12°C (Adelaide)
Desktop Detective is Foolkit's collection of tools for finding out information about people both in Australia and overseas using the resources of the internet. Most of them are free.
The most obvious ones are basic search engines, like:
Google (the editor's favorite - choose to search in Australia), Anzwers (Australian) and Webcrawler
If you are having trouble framing your question, use Ask (also known as Ask Jeeves) and enter your query as an ordinary sentence.
Dogpile and Ez2find return results using a variety of search engines.
Usenet newsgroups are discussion groups on the internet. There is a separate group for each interest. Sometimes there are many, many groups on the same topic.
These are largely uncontrolled and can contain some fairly frank views. Search to see if your person of interest has been the subject of discussion.
Google Groups (particularly the advanced search option) is a good tool for this.
Old internet pages do not die. They go to the Internet Archive Site. If you use The Wayback Machine you can see how a web site used to look like going back a number of years. Find out who was working there then, what promises they were making on their web site.
Google Maps now offer the ability to enter a street address, suburb, postcode etc.. It quickly locates the address and offers a choice of street directory, satellite photography and a hybrid version (photography with streets named). It is not as three dimensional as Google Earth. But it is far quicker navigation to your address.
Please give us feedback about your experiences using Foolkit and ideas for improvements.
There are some basic searches that you can do for yourself for free.
ASIC allows searching of the National Names Index. Check if a company is registered, check the ACN, previous names, business names. A cancelled business name can lead you to a previous owner of the business or other failed franchisees.
Click on more documents and see a history of filed documents. For further details you have to use an Information Broker.
There are a range of other searches available from ASIC. This link takes you to a page that describes the different searches. Or, go to the home page of ASIC and explore the bottom right hand corner.
You can also set a watching brief. ASIC will notify you within a business day if any documents are lodged for any company that you are keeping an eye on. They call it a Company Alert.
It is difficult to find information on incorporated associations. The best you can do is write to OCBA and pay their fee and ask for a copy of their latest filed periodic return.
The Government's Business Gateway allows you to search ABNs. The search link is in top right hand corner.
ITSA maintains the National Personal Insolvency Index ("NPII"). Unfortunately you can only access this for a fee via Citec, Lawpoint, ABR Data or Legalco - or by going into ITSA.
Other information about bankruptcy applications is available free from Federal Law Search.
Electoral Rolls are not for sale in any format, but can be viewed electronically at Electoral Commission Offices.
Trade Marks and Patents can be searched as a guest at IP Australia. Enter as a Guest. I would only use this as a preliminary search and for a more comprehensive search you should defer to a Patent Attorney.
Veda Advantage - Allows you to carry out credit reference checks on private companies (and indirectly information about their directors). Casual use permitted, you do not have to subscribe. Try Multipower Express.
To search on public companies, use the Media Search topic on this page or review the material on ASX - Australian Stock Exchange or available through your stockbroker's site..
Credit reference checks on individuals can only be carried out with their written consent.
Don't overlook the obvious. Whitepages on-line.
If you are having trouble finding somebody in a search engine like Google on the first try or two, look them up in the Whitepages. There is often a link to a web page or you can find something like a discrepancy in the name that can help you with the search.
You are not as anonymous on the internet as you think you are!
There is an excellent collection of tools for computer forensics written for lawyers called Cybersleuthing.com. The best one to try is Craig's Sampler of Informal Discovery Links.
DNSstuff has a collection of tools to let you work backwards from domain names, IP addresses and the like.
Then you have web sites known as "grey pages" or "reverse telephone directories". There are none in Australia. www.greypag.es includes information on Australia. Do not use it from within Australia. It sometimes disappears or changes.
Not as free as they used to be. Some databases like ProQuest are only available by subscription - or via your librarian.
The ABC News site is free. Australian Financial Review (and Fairfax) is a good source of information on public companies.
News Ltd. provide paid media searches. Your friendly librarian may also have access to a DataBase such as ProQuest.
You can also set a watching brief with Fairfax that covers many papers. The watching brief is free, but you have to pay to access the results.
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