Suspecting that his wife was being unfaithful to him, a man in Taiwan resorted to using a robot vacuum to film her alleged affair with another man at their holiday home.
Although he successfully proved that his marital rights were infringed upon and was awarded a sum of money, he found himself sentenced to jail for illegally filming his wife.
Filmed affair with robot vacuum
According to South China Morning Post (SCMP), the man and his wife got married in 2021 and lived with his parents, where they would go to their holiday home during holidays.
In September 2023, the man noticed a used toothbrush at the holiday home, triggering a red flag in his mind.
Upon reviewing the CCTV footage from a parking garage, he identified a man who had previously driven his wife home.
Three months later, the man saw a live feed from the home’s robot vacuum cleaner via its mobile application, where it showed his wife getting intimate with the other man.
He then recorded the affair to gather evidence for a legal claim, with footage including scenes of his wife hugging her lover and being naked in the house as he lay on the couch.
Sued wife, but gets jail time
The man later brought the footage to court and sued his wife and her lover for violating his marital rights, where he sought NT$2 million (RM255,113) in damages.
The court ruled in the man’s favour and ordered his wife to pay him NT$500,000 (RM63,778) as they found her relationship with her lover to have “surpassed the limits of ordinary friendship”.
The man’s wife then counter-sued for the recording of private footage without her consent, prompting him to argue that his actions were “legally justified”.
Unfortunately, the court didn’t side with him on this and imposed a five-month jail sentence and a NT$150,000 (RM19,133) fine for unlawfully recording private images.
It also ruled that marital obligations do not supersede an individual’s right to privacy.
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