(a) No person, partnership, association or corporation, shall engage in the business of private detective, or the business of investigator, or the business of watch, guard or patrol agency, for the purpose of furnishing guards or patrolmen or other persons to protect persons or property, or to prevent the theft or the unlawful taking of goods, wares and merchandise, or to prevent the misappropriation or concealment of goods, wares, merchandise, money, bonds, stocks, documents, and other articles of value, for hire or reward, or advertise his or their business to be that of detective, or of a detective agency, or investigator, or watch, guard or patrol agency, notwithstanding the name or title used in describing such agency, or notwithstanding the fact that other functions and services may also be performed for fee, hire or reward, without having first obtained a license so to do as hereinafter provided.

(b) No person, partnership, association, or corporation, shall engage in the business of furnishing or supplying for fee, hire, or any consideration or reward, information as to the personal character or activities of any person, partnership, corporation, society, or association, or any person or group of persons, or as to the character or kind of the business and occupation of any person, partnership, association, or corporation, or own or conduct or maintain a bureau or agency for the above mentioned purposes, except exclusively as to the financial rating, standing, and credit responsibility of persons, partnerships, associations, or corporations, or as to the personal habits and financial responsibility of applicants for insurance, indemnity bonds, or commercial credit, or of claimants under insurance policies: Provided, That the business so exempted does not embrace other activities described in subsections (a), (b) and (c) of section two of this act,¹ without having first obtained, as hereafter provided, a license so to do, for each such bureau or agency, and for each and every subagency, office and branch office to be owned, conducted, managed, or maintained by such persons, partnership, association, or corporation, for the conduct of such business.

(c) Nothing contained in this section shall be deemed to include the business of investigators for or adjusters for insurance companies, nor persons in the exclusive employment of common carriers subject to regulation by the interstate commerce commission or the Public Utility Commission of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, nor any telephone, telegraph or other telecommunications company subject to regulation by the Federal Communications Commission or the Public Utility Commission of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania or an employe of any such company while performing any investigatory activities engaged in by his employer, or investigators in the employment of credit bureaus.