Motel CCTV: How to secure it before it's erased

CCTV at motels, officetels and apartment parking lots overwrites the oldest footage first once storage is full. Retention periods vary by business, but many keep footage for a few weeks to about a month. If quite some time has already passed since you confirmed signs of the affair, you need to act as soon as possible, even a day earlier.

In most cases, the owner won't show you the footage even if you explain the situation, because it also shows other guests and raises personal data issues. An affair is not a criminal case, so the police won't secure the footage for you either.

The day you find a receipt or payment text may be the last chance for the footage to still exist. Write down the business name, address and payment time that same day.

Evidence preservation (증거보전) is a procedure in which the court examines, even before a lawsuit, evidence that would be difficult to use later unless examined in advance (Civil Procedure Act (민사소송법) Article 375). Before filing a lawsuit, you apply to the district court with jurisdiction over where the footage is; after filing, to the court hearing the case (Article 376 of the same Act).

You can apply even if you don't yet know the affair partner's name. In that case, the court can appoint a special representative (특별대리인) for the person who will be the other party (Article 378 of the same Act). The footage may be erased while you spend time finding out the name, so at this stage the date and place are more urgent than the name.

Courts rarely grant broad applications. If you ask for a whole month of footage, you will get a correction order (보정명령) to narrow the scope. Narrow the date and time as much as possible by matching receipts, card payment texts, your own car's dashcam and the excuses your spouse gave. The application must state the other party, the facts to be proved, the evidence to be preserved and why it must be preserved now, and you must make a prima facie showing of that reason (Article 377 of the same Act).

Even getting the date wrong by one day costs time while the correction is made. If you submit screenshots of the receipt or card app showing the payment time and the business location along with the application, the court can decide quickly.

• The business name and address, and where the entrance and parking lot are
• The suspected date and time (e.g., from 22:00 on ○○ to 02:00 the next day)
• Payment records or messages supporting that date
• Your spouse's car plate number and what they wore that day
• The circumstances showing the footage will soon be erased

If you receive a correction order, narrow the scope or fix the date and resubmit within the deadline. Sometimes the court suggests corrections by phone, so don't miss calls from the court. Once the footage is submitted, put the scenes showing the two together in time order and submit them in the main lawsuit.

As a rule, the other party is also notified of the evidence examination date; notice can be omitted only in urgent cases (Article 381 of the same Act). If you are worried your spouse will find out, this point should also be considered at the application stage.

Keep the footage file you receive in its original form and work from a copy.

If you know the owner and film the footage on your phone or are handed the file, both the person who handed it over and the person who received it can face criminal complaints over personal data. There are also cases where CCTV screenshots submitted in an affair lawsuit led the other side to file a complaint, turning it into a criminal case.

The same goes for removing the memory card from someone else's dashcam or putting a camera outside the other person's home. If one piece of evidence turns the matter into a criminal case, it also weakens your position in negotiating compensation (위자료). The more urgent it is, the more the court procedure turns out to be the faster route.

A single video does not prove everything. Its meaning becomes clear only when combined with the messages the two exchanged that day, the lodging payment record and where your spouse said they were that day.

Even if you obtain the footage through evidence preservation, faces may be blurry or it may show only the entrance. So before applying, if you work out what your existing material can show and what the footage will add, you can also write the reasons in the application more concretely.

• KakaoTalk chats or texts from the same day
• Payment records for lodging and meals
• Your own car's dashcam footage
• The excuse your spouse gave for that day (business trip, work dinner, etc.)