For decades, divorce proceedings of the wealthy have featured private investigators snapping telephoto shots of their targets outside luxury hotels. Such an era of private investigation into divorce proceedings has largely become obsolete.
The devastating witness in divorce proceedings today is the domestic IoT. The Internet of Things (IoT) has enabled people to record their daily lives and present that data in court proceedings. Consider the wealthy couple who claim to live in one of their residences to avoid taxes or gain custody of their children. Smart home devices such as thermostats and locks can easily reveal whether someone actually lives in a residence. For instance, if the thermostat for a home begins to drop to eco mode and the MAC addresses of devices connected to the home network show that the occupants of that home have not been present for three weeks, it is easy to discredit the individual’s residence claim.
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Modern luxury cars contain telematics systems that allow people to track where the cars are, when they were started and stopped, and even who may have been inside the vehicle. Also, smartwatches and fitness trackers monitor the individual’s biometric signs such as heart rate and body temperature, allowing the individual to defend against claims of residence by presenting counter-evidence of their biological signs during the time period in question.
The wealthier spouses often use shared streaming services and food delivery accounts that can reveal information about their other residence or assets that may be hidden from the courts.
Finally, while human investigation into a residence is limited in its ability to gather evidence, the IoT allows investigators to gather continuous, objective, and embedded metadata that can be used in court proceedings. While the investigators must comply with various laws related to privacy and data collection, the use of such technology has revolutionised the way investigators collect information for court cases. So, instead of hiring a private investigator to track the movements of the wealthy spouse, the court case will rely upon the IoT to prove its case.
