July 17, 2023
A man in Taiwan tried winning his wife back by hacking her Facebook account, however, it landed him in jail for three months.
According to Independent, the man identified as just Hou was found guilty of breaching his wife’s privacy on the social media platform.
Following a dispute last year in May, the wife left the house they shared in Chiayi city in the southwest of the island, taking their daughter along with her, according to the Taipei Times.
The wife, who is identified as Ms Yu, stopped taking her husband's calls and cut all contact with him.
Hou then decided to hack into his wife’s Facebook account which he used to send a message to his daughter and mother-in-law. In the message, he apologised for his behaviour, asking them to intervene in their dispute.
The Taipei court was told that the man logged into his wife's account twice — May 31 and June 1 last year — to contact his daughter and mother-in-law.
However, it is unclear why he hacked the account.
When his wife got to know that her husband had hacked into her account, she reportedly filed criminal charges against him.
The court then sent the man to three months in jail, saying that "individuals do not relinquish their right to privacy upon marriage" and charged him for using his wife's account without her consent and for altering [her] digital record”.
Hou pleaded guilty and was convicted of “offences against computer security” under Taiwan’s criminal code, according to the Straits Times.
The court gave the option to commute the sentence by paying a fine of NT$1,000 (approximately £25) per day.