He caught his spouse’s betrayal with a broom! It ended in prison.

In Taiwan, a man who suspected his wife of cheating on him exposed the forbidden relationship by remotely operating the robot vacuum’s camera. Having won the damages lawsuit he filed over the infidelity, the man was now charged for secretly recording the footage and was sentenced to five months in prison.

According to information reflected in the local press, the couple who married in 2021 mostly lived with the husband’s family and occasionally stayed in their vacation homes. In September 2023, the man who found a used toothbrush in the vacation home examined the parking lot’s security camera footage out of suspicion. In the footage, he saw an unknown man leaving his wife at home.

The husband, whose suspicions grew, activated the robot vacuum at home remotely using the app on his phone three months later. Watching the live feed, he saw his wife with another man. The recorded footage showed the woman changing clothes, getting close to her boyfriend, and walking around the house naked; the other man was lying on the sofa.

Using the footage as evidence, the man filed a lawsuit against his wife and her boyfriend on the grounds that they had violated marital rights. The husband, who demanded approximately $68,000 in damages, won the case. The court ordered the woman and her boyfriend to pay a total of $17,000 in damages.

But the story did not end there. The woman, claiming that footage of her private life had been recorded without her consent, filed a complaint against her husband. The court ruled that the prior acceptance of the footage as evidence in the lawsuit did not render the recording lawful.

The husband argued that his intention was not to secretly record his wife but to confront her. He also claimed that the light and audible alerts emitted by the robot vacuum while operating were sufficient to inform the woman that a recording was taking place. However, the court rejected this defense, concluding that the alerts did not clearly convey that the person was being recorded.

The court sentenced the man, whom it ruled had violated his spouse's privacy, to 5 months in prison. It also decided to impose a fine exceeding $4,700.

Under Taiwanese law, secretly recording or publishing a person's private life activities or confidential information without permission can result in up to 3 years in prison and a fine exceeding $9,000.

Thus, the man who proved his spouse's forbidden relationship using technology could not avoid prison, despite winning his lawsuit, because the method he used was found to be unlawful.