Women’s Digital Privacy in Canada: How Data Tracking Puts Women at Risk
- Cindy Peterson
- 6 days ago
- 6 min read
Updated: 5 days ago
A Vancouver teacher unlocks her phone on the SkyTrain. Moments later, ads appear for the coffee shop she just walked past. She never searched for it. She never said its name aloud. Yet her phone already knew.
Across Canada, millions of women leave invisible data trails every day. Apps, smartwatches, and loyalty programs quietly record locations, habits, and health details. These systems feel invisible until something goes wrong, such as a leak, a targeted scam, or a former partner who knows too much.
By the end of this article, you’ll understand how women’s data is tracked, what Canada’s privacy laws actually protect, the growing risks linked to AI and wearable technology, and what you can do to safeguard your digital life.
Table of Contents
How Women’s Data Is Tracked in Daily Life
Every tap, scroll, or purchase adds to a growing profile of who you are. The apps and devices that make life easier also feed a powerful network of data collection.
Fact: In 2022, Canadian privacy commissioners found that the Tim Hortons app tracked users’ locations every few minutes, even when the app was closed.
Most people never realise how much information their phones share. Period and fitness trackers collect health details, including fertility patterns and stress levels. Navigation apps follow daily routes, while retail loyalty programs record spending habits. Once uploaded, this information is often stored on servers outside Canada, where local privacy laws do not apply.
Smartwatches add another layer. They record heart rate, sleep cycles, and movement data that can reveal not only health patterns but emotional states. Some brands share this data with analytics partners or wellness programs without users understanding who can access it. Details on how menstrual and fitness data are handled appear in this investigation into period tracker privacy.
Loyalty cards and smart home systems complete the digital picture. A coffee purchase, grocery visit, or thermostat adjustment may seem harmless but can map daily routines. When combined, these details reveal where someone goes, when they’re home, and what they value. The growing concern over connected devices has been explored in reporting on smart home abuse across Vancouver.
Smart Home Abuse in Vancouver: When Devices Are Used for Control
In British Columbia, police and advocates are reporting more cases of “smart home abuse,” where technology becomes a tool for control instead of convenience.
One Vancouver woman discovered her former partner was remotely controlling her smart thermostat, turning lights on and off, and unlocking doors through a shared app. These manipulations left her feeling unsafe in her own home.
The BC Society of Transition Houses surveyed anti-violence programs across the province in 2024. Eighty-nine per cent said they had supported women facing technology-facilitated abuse. Experts warn that connected devices allow abusers to maintain power even after a relationship ends.
Fact: Canada’s Criminal Code prohibits harassment and intimidation but does not yet recognise coercive control as a specific offence.
Until laws change, victims must rely on existing legal tools such as restraining orders under the Family Law Act or criminal harassment charges. Both require digital proof like screenshots or activity logs, which can be difficult to collect.
If you suspect digital interference, review every account linked to your smart devices. Change passwords, enable two-factor authentication, and remove shared users. Document suspicious activity before resetting devices. For help, contact VictimLink BC at 1-800-563-0808 or Battered Women’s Support Services for confidential support.
You can also explore how hidden photo data exposes personal information in this analysis of metadata and location tracking risks.
When Online Habits Become a Digital Trail
Everyday actions, like posting a photo or signing into a rewards app, can reveal far more than intended.
Metadata, the hidden information attached to photos, often includes GPS coordinates, timestamps, and device details. In several Canadian harassment cases, investigators have found offenders using this data to track victims’ locations.
Fact: Seventy-two per cent of Canadians believe their online activities are being tracked without consent (Office of the Privacy Commissioner, 2024).
When browsing, shopping, or exercising, small pieces of data combine to create a detailed personal profile. For women, that data can become a safety concern if it exposes addresses, routines, or vulnerabilities.
Understanding this connection between data and risk is critical. Further insight into how corporations and advertisers monetise women’s data appears in this feature on digital profiling and online privacy in Canada.
Simple steps like disabling photo geotags, turning off precise location tracking, and avoiding real-time posting can significantly reduce exposure.
Women’s Digital Privacy Canada: A Hidden Safety Risk
Canada’s privacy laws were not built for the digital world most people live in today.
The country’s main rules, the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) and BC’s Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA), both allow businesses to send personal data outside Canada. They only require companies to disclose this in their privacy policies.
Fact: Once data crosses the border, it becomes subject to foreign laws such as the U.S. Patriot Act.
This means personal information from Canadians can be accessed by third-party partners, advertisers, or even foreign agencies. PIPEDA focuses on consent but lacks real financial penalties. PIPA applies to BC businesses and non-profits but similarly allows foreign storage.
Bill C-27, known as the Consumer Privacy Protection Act, was designed to modernise these laws and regulate artificial intelligence. It stalled in early 2025 before Parliament dissolved.
British Columbia has tried to fill the gap with the Intimate Images Protection Act, introduced in 2024. It gives victims of non-consensual or AI-generated image sharing a quick legal route through the Civil Resolution Tribunal. In 2025, the Tribunal fined X Corp. $100,000 for ignoring a takedown order, proving that enforcement can happen when laws are written for modern threats.
To see how this provincial law is reshaping digital accountability, read this deep dive into BC’s approach to deepfake protection.
When No One Is Held Accountable
Even when companies break privacy rules, few face real consequences.
Weak enforcement encourages corporations to over-collect and sell data with little transparency. It also leaves users unaware of how much information has been shared or sold.
Fact: Canada’s privacy laws have never issued a monetary fine for violations, even after public data breaches.
For women, the lack of accountability increases vulnerability. When addresses, health records, or search histories become accessible, they can be misused by stalkers, scammers, or abusive partners.
Experts say privacy protection only works when it includes enforcement and public disclosure. Stronger oversight and meaningful penalties would help rebuild trust.
Practical steps for reducing exposure, from data deletion requests to directory removals, are outlined in this guide to removing personal data online in Canada.
The Next Digital Threat to Women’s Safety
Artificial intelligence is transforming how personal data is collected and used.
AI systems analyse voice patterns, facial expressions, and typing habits to predict emotions or health conditions. Many of these tools rely on massive datasets scraped from social media, wearable devices, or fitness apps.
Fact: Sixty-four per cent of Canadian employers use AI in hiring or employee wellness programs (ISED, 2025).
Wearable data can expose more than physical fitness. Heart rate fluctuations, stress tracking, and sleep patterns reveal intimate health details that could be valuable to insurers or marketers. Some wellness programs already use this information to promote or price services. The privacy risks tied to wearables are detailed in this report on smartwatch data in Canada.
The rise of deepfakes adds another layer of danger. AI-generated images can replicate a person’s likeness in explicit or false contexts. BC’s Intimate Images Protection Act is one of the only laws that lets victims demand immediate removal and damages. Other provinces have no similar system, forcing victims to navigate slow takedown processes.
What Canadian Women Need to Demand Next
The gaps in Canada’s privacy laws have real-world consequences. Data misuse is no longer just a corporate issue; it directly affects women’s safety and autonomy.
Fact: The BC Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner handled more than 700 technology-misuse complaints in 2025, nearly double the number from 2020.
Privacy experts argue that reform must prioritise enforcement, gender-based protections, and cooperation between provinces. Without stronger national standards, Canadians remain unevenly protected depending on where they live.
Women in Vancouver are already seeing how these gaps play out in practice, as shown in this investigation into doxing and digital exposure.
Five Urgent Changes Canada Needs
Financial penalties for serious privacy violations
National standards for gender-based digital safety
Transparency in how AI collects and uses data
Faster cooperation between privacy regulators
Mandatory digital literacy programs in schools and workplaces
Public awareness is rising, but change depends on pressure. Sharing reliable information, contacting MLAs, and supporting policy reform all help close the gap between privacy law and modern technology.
Taking Back Control of Your Digital Life
Digital privacy is not only about protecting information. It is about protecting safety, freedom, and peace of mind.
For women in Canada, understanding how data moves is the first step toward control. Reviewing app permissions, deleting unused accounts, and asking companies to remove stored data all help limit what is shared.
Each small action reduces exposure. Each choice to protect information is an act of self-defence in a system built to collect more than it gives back.
Laws may take time to change, but awareness can start today. Privacy is not a luxury. It is a defence, and every woman deserves it.
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