Thinking about tracking, recording, or snooping on a cheating spouse? Learn what privacy and wiretap laws allow before you risk a lawsuit or criminal charge.
If you suspect your spouse is having an affair, you may be tempted to use technology to gather evidence, such as a GPS tracker on the car, a look through emails, a hidden camera, or a recorded phone call.
Before you embark on an investigative journey, understand that privacy laws are stricter than you think and vary a great deal from state to state, especially when it comes to GPS tracking.
Why a Spouse Might Want Proof of Cheating
Every state allows a "no-fault" divorce. You can always end a marriage by saying it's "irretrievably broken" or you and your spouse have "irreconcilable differences." But some states, like New York and New Jersey, still let a spouse seek a divorce on "fault grounds," including adultery. (N.Y. Dom. Rel. Law § 170(4); N.J. Stat.§ 2A:34-2 (2026).)
In these states, gathering evidence of an affair is necessary to prove fault. And, depending on the state, judges may also sometimes consider fault when dividing property or awarding alimony.
Is GPS Tracking Legal?
For years, many people assumed that if you owned a vehicle—solely or jointly—you could probably legally track it. The idea was that if you installed a Global Positioning System (GPS) tracker on a car you jointly owned with your spouse to track their movements on public roads, the spouse had no reasonable expectation of privacy. (See, for example, Villanova v. Innovative Investigations, Inc., 420 N.J. Super. 353 (App. Div. 2011).)
However, especially as consumer trackers like AirTags have become widespread, many states have passed laws making it illegal to install a tracking device in someone else's car without that person's consent, no matter who is on the vehicle's title. Some states, like California, make it a crime to use an electronic tracking device to monitor a person's location without their consent. (Cal. Pen. Code § 637.7 (2026).) Other states, like New York, fold nonconsensual GPS tracking into their stalking statutes. (N.Y. Penal Law § 120.45 (2026).)
The bottom line is that you can't assume being on the car's title makes tracking your spouse legal. In a majority of states, the tracked person's consent is what matters. This remains an evolving area of the law. If you have questions about what's legal in your state, talk to a family law or criminal defense lawyer.
Is It Legal to Record Phone Calls?
In 1968, Congress passed the Federal Wiretap Act to protect wire and oral communications from interception. The law was later updated with the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 to cover email and other electronic communications. (18 U.S.C. § 2510-2523 (2026).) Nearly every state has its own wiretap statute modeled on the federal laws.
Most laws allow you to record a conversation that you're participating in. For example, if you and your spouse are talking, you can typically record the conversation. But you can't secretly record a conversation between your spouse and someone else. Courts in most states have rejected the idea that spouses are entitled to eavesdrop on each other just because they are married.
Illegally obtained wiretap evidence typically can't be used in a divorce or custody case. And the penalties for violating these types of statutes can be steep. In Missouri, for example, you can be criminally prosecuted for a felony and sued in federal court for actual damages (but not less than $100 per day for each violation or $10,000, whichever is greater), punitive damages, and attorney's fees and other litigation costs. (Mo. Rev. Stat. §§ 542.400, 542.402, 542.418 (2026).)
Cell phone calls are generally treated the same as landline calls under these statutes, and courts in some states have extended coverage to scanners used to intercept cellular signals.
Is It Legal to Access a Spouse's Email or Computer?
Whether it's legal to look at a spouse's email or computer files often depends on whether the message was caught while it was being sent or whether it was sitting in storage after it already arrived.
Catching a message while it's being sent—for example, by installing spyware that grabs texts or emails as someone types them—is called intercepting a communication. Wiretap laws forbid this, and you can face serious criminal charges and large civil fines if you do it.
The law treats looking at messages that have already been delivered and saved somewhere, like an inbox or a shared computer, differently. The issue is usually whether you were allowed to access the place where they were stored. For example, most courts have found that a spouse has no right to privacy in emails left unlocked on a computer that is kept in a shared room of the house that both spouses use. But it would be much riskier to log into a password-protected account or go through a spouse's work computer.
Is It Legal to Install Video Surveillance at Home?
Video surveillance inside the marital home is generally permitted and isn't treated as an invasion of privacy because both spouses have an equal right to be there, though hiding cameras in private areas, like bathrooms, when a person is fully or partially nude can be a crime. (Mo. Rev. Stat. § 565.252 (2026).)
Why Snooping Can Backfire
Even when snooping isn't technically illegal, gathering evidence this way can backfire. Judges often don't like when spouses spy on each other and may hold it against you when determining your credibility and other contested issues.
Rules vary from state to state and evolve with technology. Before using a GPS tracker, wiretap, hidden camera, or spyware on your spouse, talk with a family law or criminal defense attorney.
