Woman fined for hacking cheating husband’s emails

A Swiss woman has had a conviction upheld for reading her husband’s emails, in which she discovered details of various extramarital affairs.

The woman, who was not named in local Swiss media reports, was charged with unauthorised intrusion into her husband’s data after she logged in to a new email account he had created on their computer. The couple shared many passwords and had noted some down next to the computer. “He had been in contact with several women for a long time. I confronted him with his affairs, and he moved out of our flat,” the unnamed woman said in a court hearing.

The original charges were brought in February when she was convicted in Muri and handed a 9900 franc ($14,300) fine, suspended on the condition of no further offences in the next two years, and a 4300 franc fine to cover police costs.

On appeal to a district court, the defence argued for the woman’s acquittal, saying that the defendant had not technically “hacked” into her husband’s account, given she already knew his password.

The court upheld the conviction on the grounds that reading password-protected data without the account owner’s permission is illegal and punishable with a fine or up to three years in prison. It reduced the suspended financial penalty to 1500 francs because the woman merely had to “exploit her husband’s carelessness” to gain access to the information.