r/nottheonion • u/RINTNEON • 2h ago
Man uses robot vacuum to catch cheating wife, wins $16,000 affair case, then gets jailed for secretly filming her
https://www.techspot.com/news/113677-man-uses-robot-vacuum-covertly-record-wife-affair.html3
1
5
u/corran132 1h ago
Yes, this ruling might sound ridiculous. But here's the problem:
Hypothetically, say there was no affair. Say the man used his robot vacuum to record his wife naked without her consent. Should that be legal? If so, how could he use those videos? Could he post them online? How would that change if this was not his wife, but a guest? What if that guest is a minor?
Alternatively, say she was having an affair, and he found out because she was texting about it while on the toilet, and he had a camera monitoring her in the bathroom. Would that be legal? If the footage of him finding out is fine, what about the other events recorded, given they were generated 'in the course of his investigation?'
How would that change if the drone had acted without supervision? With things like smart speakers monitoring semi constantly and improvement of recognition software, is it unreasonable to assume that some company is considering creating a 'digital watchdog' program to monitor people/property? Is it unreasonable to assume someone would install this app so that, if their partner cheats, the authorities would immediately be alerted? If this still sounds reasonable, what would happen if someone used this watchdog app on someone they were not in a relationship with, and had the app alert the police whenever they were with anyone other than the installer? The point is, if the court rules that any device that could be monitoring should be assumed to be monitoring at all times, it opens the door for so many levels of increased cyber scrutiny.
And yes, she was cheating, so there is an inherent drive to immediately say 'well, who cares, she was in the wrong.' But the problem is that courts only have to rule on the legality of evidence when a questionable search leads to something being found. As an example, stop and frisk is a program which has lead to a lot of problems, up to and including the harassment of specific communities with an incredibly low rate of contraband discovery. The court validated the police's the ability to do those stops because of an interaction where an officer found a gun, and the man challenged his stop in court. If the officer had not found a gun, it would never get to court, and that president would not be sent. By the same token, if the plaintiff in this case has simply used the vacuum as he intended, then it's possible the two work it out and this never makes it to court.
This is all to say that, while the headline seems ridiculous, we are living in a world where a lot of our technology has the capability to monitor and record us. If a court begins loosening restrictions on how that monitoring can be used, it opens the door for a mountain of abuse.
•
-2
u/Due-Mycologist-1154 1h ago
Idk man him admitting to that in a seperate case has nothing to with the one for him and they only have her word that it happened which is worth nothing
32
u/JeffersonsHat 1h ago
What doesn't make sense is that it was considered secret filming. If it occurred in the house and came from the cleaning robot then it shouldn't have been considered secret.