A man has been sentenced to five months in prison in Taiwan for invasion of privacy after he used footage from a robot vacuum cleaner's camera to prove his wife was having an affair. The husband, whose identity has not been publicly released, was convicted of illegally recording his wife without her consent.
The couple married in 2021. The husband's suspicions were first aroused when he found a toothbrush at their holiday home that did not belong to him or his wife. Subsequent review of CCTV footage from outside the property showed a man repeatedly dropping his wife off at the residence.
In December 2023, the husband remotely activated the robot vacuum cleaner in the holiday home from his parents' home using a mobile app. While attempting to enable the device's audio function, he inadvertently activated its live camera. This captured footage of his wife with her lover, according to the South China Morning Post. The recording reportedly showed the couple undressing and moving about the holiday home naked.
Following the discovery of the affair, the husband sought over £46,600 (NT$2 million) in damages from his wife in civil divorce proceedings, submitting the video evidence. A civil court ruled that the wife's conduct had gone "beyond the bounds of friendship" and ordered her to pay her ex-partner over £11,600 (NT$500,000).
However, the wife subsequently took her husband to criminal court, alleging an infringement of her privacy. The criminal court rejected the husband's defense that the evidence had already been accepted in a civil case. The court determined that marital duties did not supersede an individual's right to privacy. It was also noted that the sounds and lights emitted when the robot vacuum's camera and microphone were activated were too subtle to have alerted the wife.
In addition to his five-month prison sentence, the husband was ordered to pay his ex-wife nearly £3,500 (NT$150,000).