Ontario Private Investigator Test 2026: Free Practice Questions by Topic

Why study by topic, not by guessing

The Ontario private investigator test is not a memory test of trivia. Every question maps to a defined area of the law: who may hold a licence, the duties in the Code of Conduct, how complaints and investigations work, the standards of practice a licensee must keep, the privacy rules under PIPEDA, and the arrest and use of force powers in the Criminal Code. If you study in that structure you spend your time where the marks are instead of reading the statute cover to cover. The six guides below mirror those areas exactly, so you can work through one topic at a time and feel ready rather than overwhelmed. Each guide answers the real questions Ontario candidates ask, explains the governing section, gives you a comparison table for the points people confuse, and lets you try free practice questions drawn from a large question bank.

The six topics the test covers

The private investigator test in Ontario sits on top of the mandatory basic training, and it draws from four connected bodies of law. Two are provincial: the PSISA itself and its Code of Conduct regulation, O. Reg. 363/07. Two are federal: PIPEDA, which governs how you collect and use personal information as a commercial investigator, and the Criminal Code, which sets the narrow limits on arrest and force. The six guides together walk the whole syllabus:

• Licensing requirements: the age, clean criminal record, work entitlement and training rules, plus the application itself, under PSISA s. 10 to s. 12.
• Code of Conduct: the duties and prohibitions every licensee must follow under O. Reg. 363/07 and PSISA s. 53.
• Complaints and investigations: how a complaint is filed and handled, and the powers of investigators and inspectors under PSISA s. 19 to s. 29.1.
• Duties and standards: insurance, carrying and showing your licence, prohibited titles and holding out as police under PSISA s. 30 to s. 40.
• Privacy under PIPEDA: consent, the fair information principles, and the investigation exceptions a private investigator relies on.
• Arrest and use of force: citizen's arrest, use of force, self-defence and defence of property under the Criminal Code.

What the Ontario test actually tests

The single most common mistake candidates make is treating the private investigator as if they carried police authority. They do not. A licensed private investigator in Ontario is a member of the public with a provincial licence, bound tightly by the Code of Conduct and by federal privacy law, and holding only the ordinary arrest powers that any person has under the Criminal Code. That framing runs through every topic. The PSISA sets who may be licensed and what standards you keep; O. Reg. 363/07 tells you how to behave, including refraining from unnecessary force and treating information as confidential; PIPEDA controls the personal information at the heart of the job; and the Criminal Code marks the line you cannot cross when you detain someone. Learn the topics as one connected system and the test stops feeling like a list of disconnected facts.

Check your readiness, then go deeper

Not sure where to start? Work the free practice questions on each topic page to find your weak areas, then drill them. Each topic page exposes a slice of the same question bank that powers our offline Ontario private investigator app, so you can sample the real difficulty for free before you decide to unlock the full bank of questions and flashcards. The facts on these pages are taken from the public text of the Private Security and Investigative Services Act, 2005, O. Reg. 363/07, PIPEDA and the Criminal Code, and were last reviewed on 2026-07-17. Treat this hub as your citable starting point, and verify any current requirement against the official Ontario licensing page before you act on it, because ministry procedures and fees can change without changing the underlying statute.