SB739

SB739 adds investigators commissioned as peace officers by the Texas insurance commissioner to the list of “authorized peace officers” in the state law governing specified tracking equipment and access to communications data. It applies to commissioned investigators under Insurance Code 701.104, not every insurance employee or private insurance investigator. The bill became law without the governor’s signature on June 20, 2025 and took effect September 1, 2025. New Article 18B.001(1)(M) and effective date; Who can be commissioned; Official history.

This lets those investigators use procedures available to an authorized peace officer, such as applying to a district judge for a mobile-tracking order or a warrant for stored electronic customer data, subject to the existing sworn-application and probable-cause requirements. They may also request a prosecutor’s application for certain telephone-routing or tracing equipment. SB739 changes who qualifies; it does not itself eliminate the chapter’s legal-process rules or create an unrestricted power to listen to communications. Definition change; Mobile-tracking application; Stored-data warrant; Prosecutor application procedure.

Some powers remain narrower than the general definition. For example, the existing rule for installing pen registers (devices that record dialing or routing information, not conversation content) and specified location-information procedures are limited to DPS or separately designated agencies and officers. SB739 does not add the insurance department to that separate designated-agency list. Nor does it grant every authorized officer the separate administrative-subpoena power. Existing consent, directory-information and emergency provisions also retain their own conditions. Separate definitions; Pen-register restriction; Specified location-information warrant procedure; Administrative-subpoena officials; Customer-data routes; Limited directory and emergency-dispatch information.