Texas PC Repair Now Requires PI License

[Bushwacker]

If your thinking about doing PC repair for a living in Texas read this ARTICLE (http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,2324210,00.asp) even if your not it's worth a read. How messed up is this. Geez man, I mean I can see certain valid points to this, but I don't think they out weigh the con's of it.

What do you think?

[Almuric]

That's pretty interesting. Seems you're fine so long as you dont offer to fix anything that requires looking at the data on the hard drive.

[Silentblade]

That is dumb, but I guess if you don't do anything that is analyzing the data then you'll be fine. I don't think that they need a PI license to tell someone where their spouse has been on the pc.

[Bushwacker]

Thing is, more times than not a tech has to do data recovery or data backup or some other form of work that will require he/she to work with data. One way or another you are going to see data on a PC there is no way around it. Doesn't matter if your looking for something specific or not. You may only be trying to kill a virus or some form of malware.

If a tech is not allowed to analyze data on the machine then his/her options for repair are limited severely. What are you going to tell the customer...Umm sorry I cant look at any of your data so we are going to have to wipe and reload you OS and start from scratch. The list goes on but I think you see what I'm talking about. Killing adware/spyware and virus's is the bread and butter for repair shops.

[Silentblade]

Very true, but I think having to be a PI is going a little far, they have been repairing the data like that for years and have never had any problems that have came up so far, so what is the point of this law?

[Bushwacker]

Exactly! I think it's too much. This may sound a bit weird, but I think it's just another way for the gov to control things more to there favor and pick up some extra cash on the way.

[Almuric]

I agree on that point. The legislation probably got passed on the thought of increased revenues for the PI licensing fees.

[Silentblade]

Basically more money for the state and federal governments and puts the little guy out of business. This will probably spread like wildfire once California hears about it, I'm surprised they didn't come up with it first. They are usually the ones to make up the "What the hell were you thinking?" laws.

[Bushwacker]

LMAO... Yeah and Oregon isn't that far behind.