If you've already secretly recorded or tracked your spouse

Your risk of punishment and the order of your response vary greatly depending on these five points. Write them down with dates as well as you can remember.

• Whether you were part of the recorded conversations or not
• Whether the device is still installed (if so, stop using it)
• Who you have sent the recordings or photo files to
• If you hired a private investigator, what methods the agency used
• Whether your spouse or the affair partner knows about this

Recording a conversation you take part in is not a violation of the Protection of Communications Secrets Act (통신비밀보호법). Recording a conversation in which you confront your spouse about the affair is not a problem. The problems are the cases below. Even if you went through a private investigator, the same laws may apply depending on what you asked for.

• Recording or listening to a conversation you were not part of: violation of the Protection of Communications Secrets Act, 1 to 10 years' imprisonment and suspension of qualifications for up to 5 years (no fine option)
• Attaching a location tracker or installing a location app without consent: violation of the Location Information Act (위치정보법), up to 3 years' imprisonment or a fine of up to KRW 30 million
• Unlocking your spouse's phone and reading or photographing messages: may raise violation of the Information and Communications Network Act (정보통신망법) or violation of secrecy (비밀침해)
• Entering the affair partner's home or a lodging room: may raise trespass (주거침입)

Under the Protection of Communications Secrets Act, conversations secretly recorded by a third party cannot be used as evidence in court. The Supreme Court held that recording files and transcripts obtained by putting a recorder in a spouse's car are inadmissible in a lawsuit for affair compensation (Supreme Court Decision 2024다222212, rendered April 30, 2026).

Other unlawfully gathered material is not automatically excluded in civil lawsuits; it is judged by weighing how it was collected, the degree of privacy intrusion and the need for the evidence. Even if it is used as evidence, the criminal liability of the person who gathered it remains separately. In effect, you take on a criminal case for material that may not even be usable, so it is safer to use court procedures from the start.

In particular, playing the recordings to the affair partner's family or company can raise both disclosure or leaking under the Protection of Communications Secrets Act and defamation (명예훼손).

• Playing the recordings to family, acquaintances or people around the affair partner (disclosure and leaking are also punishable)
• Leaving the device installed
• Destroying files and devices on your own after an investigation has begun
• Hiring a private investigator for further investigation

We look again at whether the infidelity can be proved without the problematic material. Lodging CCTV can be secured through evidence preservation (증거보전), and call and payment records through court fact inquiries (사실조회) and document production orders (문서제출명령). We also gather lawful material, such as your own conversations with your spouse and any written statement your spouse made.

If you have already submitted the problematic recording in a lawsuit, you need to decide whether to withdraw that evidence and whether other material can show the same facts. If the other side has filed a criminal complaint based on that recording, your statements in the civil and criminal cases must also be kept consistent.

Jisan Law first separates recording, tracking and accessing the phone act by act and identifies which parts are problematic. If a complaint has been filed against you, we rehearse with likely questions before questioning, sit in on the questioning and submit a defense lawyer's written opinion. The affair lawsuit is redesigned around lawful evidence.

You can tell us about it through the chat on this page before sending any files.