Divorces Italian style but in tech sauce: when maps, selfies and social networks reveal betrayal

Don’t put your finger between husband and wife, they say. But the finger of contention is increasingly found resting on the screen of a smartphone. Marital relationships have to deal with the exposure of our online lives, between social networks, chats and search engines (on the one hand) and privacy expectations (on the other).

What happens then when escapades and infidelities are exposed in the digital world? In recent years, several sentences in Italy have addressed the issue: here are some examples.

When betrayal passes through Street View

This is what happened in a case decided by the Milan court in 2018 and at the center of a recent sentence by the Court of Cassation. The story concerns a husband who, with Google Maps, he accidentally discovered his wife’s car parked in an unusual place. After various pressures and investigations, the woman found herself forced to admit an extramarital affair, thus determining the end of the marriage.

The woman decided to take Google to court to obtain compensation for the damages suffered: the company had not warned that photographic shooting was underway for Street View and had not encrypted the car’s license plate number. With a decision later also confirmed by the Cassation, the Milanese court rejected the request, both because a Google company was called into question which does not provide the service in question and because no evidence was produced of a causal link between the company’s behavior and the damage suffered. In particular, according to the judges, it was not proven that the husband noticed the suspicious parking by consulting Google Maps and that the consequences reported by his wife then derived from this discovery.

Watch out for selfies, social networks and dating sites

Finding yourself paparazzi on Google Maps is quite an event rare (but not very rare)like discovering a betrayal by consulting the messages received on the partner’s smartwatch, as happened in a case recently decided by the court of Benevento.

The greatest risks for unfaithful wives and husbands they pass through much more common situations, such as a few too many selfies. In a 2019 judgment before the Court of Appeal of L’Aquila, a man brought selfies taken by his wife with her lover, in one of which the latter was also bare-chested on her bed. However, the judges considered the photos not sufficient to prove the extramarital affair, as they did not depict any intimate attitude between the two and could have different and alternative explanations, and therefore excluded the charge for the separation on the part of the woman. Also in 2019, a sentence from the Catania court and one from the Palermo court of appeal they felt that photographs, statuses and public messages on social networks are not enough to prove a betrayal, being able at most to have relevance on a circumstantial level. Other courts, such as those of Rome and Bari, have instead on several occasions given importance to the publicity of an extramarital relationship with photos and changes of sentimental status on social networks to decide on the charge and compensation for damages.

Also navigate on dating sites it can be dangerous for the fate of a couple. The sentence number 9384/2018 of the Cassation has set the standard, according to which the spouse who seeks extramarital affairs on the Internet violates the obligation of fidelity between wife and husband: this behavior therefore constitutes a legitimate cause of removal from the marital home and charge for the separation. An orientation recently confirmed also by another ruling of the Supreme Court (n. 3879/2021), where importance was also given to payments made on online dating sites.

When a crime is committed to discover a betrayal

Sometimes, the determination to expose the infidelity of husbands and wives can prove a double-edged sword. By sneaking into your partner’s email account, even when you know the password, you commit the crime of abusive access to a computer or telematic system, punished with up to 3 years’ imprisonment. This is what he clarified in a sentence of 2017 the Cassationcalled to evaluate the behavior of a woman who, in possession of her husband’s password, stealthily entered his e-mail account by downloading some messages and, out of spite, also changing the access data.

Attention, why the same principle also applies to social networks network. The Cassation, in a 2019 decision, reiterated that knowing the credentials to access the partner’s Facebook account is not sufficient to exclude the crime. In this case a husband, who knew his wife’s credentials, snuck into his social profile, photographing and then bringing the woman’s conversation with another man to trial. Here too the abusive access was then concluded with the change of the password of others.

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Warnings for the online world

The new existential dimension in which we are immersed, in perennial balance between digital and real, it also conditions the most intimate and personal aspects of our lives, such as family relationships (similarly to what happens for the phenomenon of so-called sharing). So we need to stop and reflect. Because every action we take online has offline consequences. We need to abandon the idea, often still widespread, that the Internet and social networks are just a large amusement park, a bright and colorful Las Vegas just a click away. The “what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas” rule only applies to movies. It therefore becomes central to acquire awareness of the value to be attributed to privacy, one’s own and that of others. Also because, to be honest, to discover a betrayal at times even just a jar of jam may be enough. For confirmation, ask the former footballer Piqué.