Disclaimer: This article is based on actual news from the real world – honestly! However, it has been sprinkled with a healthy dose of satire.
Note: We tried to find the man’s actual name; it turns out Taiwan’s courts routinely anonymize parties in privacy and sexual-image cases, which is also ironic since he did not give his wife the same courtesy.
(AntonMatyukha/depositphotos)
In December 2023, a Taiwanese man remotely activated his family’s robot vacuum. He told the court he initially only intended to use the vacuum’s two-way speaker to yell at his wife. The vacuum’s live camera feed came up instead, and “inadvertently” captured live video of his wife, another man, and a floor nobody was going to be cleaning that evening. He tapped record. Everything before that tap was legal in Taiwan. The tap itself got him five months in prison.
Taiwan still recognizes claims for infringement of spousal rights (ew). As a result, he was able to sue the wife and the other man for NT$2 million and was awarded NT$500,000, roughly $16,000 USD, to be paid by both of them. The wife, however, filed a criminal complaint against him for unlawfully recording sexual images. The judges wrote that marriage does not strip either spouse of the fundamental right to privacy, and found that his wife had a reasonable expectation of not being filmed naked in her own bedroom by a robot vacuum cleaner.
His defense, according to the ruling, was that because the vacuum makes small sounds and lights up while operating, this should be considered informed consent. The court declined to accept this argument. The transcript does not say how hard they laughed or for how long. The judges pointed out that the husband turned on the live feed, saw the other man, and then started recording, which isn’t a good look.
It remains unclear why exactly a vacuum cleaner needs a two-way speaker and a live video camera with the option to record footage.
This story is based on fully factual news, but if we got it wrong, blame these guys, we’re just here to make it funny.
