Manitoba’s Privacy Landscape: From Theory and Technology to the Law
Written by Jayden Kyryluk, B.A., JD Candidate 2026
Privacy matters to everyone. Regardless of one’s economic or personal circumstances, people place significant value on their right to privacy. But what even is privacy, and how did it become so important in our lives?
1. Theoretical Foundations
The concept of privacy has shifted in meaning depending on context, culture, and technology. Described by Justice Binnie in R v. Tessling as “protean,”[1] or in other words, changeable, privacy has always been a contested concept that has resisted a fixed definition. What has grown, though, is its importance in modern life. The 1890 Harvard Law Review article by Warren and Brandeis, The Right to Privacy, famously argued for “the right to be let alone,”[2] stating that the intense rise of “intellectual and emotional life, and the heightened sensations which came with the advance of civilization”[3] made it clear that the thoughts, emotions, and sensations accompanying these advances deserve legal protection.
Alan Westin, a former law professor at Columbia University and leader on the domain of privacy, mirrored Warren and Brandeis’ statement that privacy is “the right to be let alone”[4] by likening privacy to control: the right to decide when, how, and to what extent personal information is shared.[5] Westin believed privacy performed four basic functions in democratic society: (1) personal autonomy, (2) emotional release, (3) self-evaluation, and (4) limited and protected communications.[6] The source of all these functions is the self, where the individual is the controller of their privacy. Similarly, Irwin Altman, a social psychologist, equated privacy to a boundary control process, where people sometimes make themselves open and accessible to others, and sometimes close themselves off.[7] To Altman, privacy arises from selectively controlling access through boundary negotiation.[8]
Helen Nissenbaum, a professor of information science at Cornell Tech, nuanced Westin and Altman’s view, suggesting privacy is not just about control, but contextual integrity.[9] For Nissenbaum, privacy is not simply a matter of individual control over personal data or the selective permeability of social boundaries. Rather, privacy violations arise wheninformation flows inappropriately across contexts, breaking established social norms regarding who should have access to what information and under what circumstances.
Nissenbaum identifies two key dimensions. First, the norm of appropriateness, which governs what kinds of information are suitable to share in a given setting. For example, it is appropriate for your best friend to ask about romantic relationships, but not for your doctor. Second, the norm of flow, which dictates how information should be shared within and across social domains. For instance, information about your personal life might flow from your best friend to a third, mutual best friend. It would be upsetting, though, if your best friend called up your doctor with reports on your private life. In Nissenbaum’s view, privacy is maintained not by absolute secrecy or control, but by the proper functioning of these context-specific norms.[10] As such, what counts as a privacy violation depends not only on the data disclosed, but also on who is disclosing, to whom, and in what setting.
So, we have two approaches to privacy: the first views it as control over one’s life and personal information, while the second sees it as the contextual flow of information. While these two approaches differ in theory, they converge in practice by reflecting the reality that privacy is increasingly treated as something negotiable. In the modern digital world, transgressions of privacy occur far more easily. Privacy now resembles a commodity—some give it up for a more visible social life, while others protect it at the expense of their social visibility.
2. The Digital Future: Privacy in the Age of Social Media
What happens when two growing ideas meet? They either combine in some sort of modern syncretism, or more bluntly, one wins, and one loses. This is happening in the modern day with privacy and technology, and the battlefield is our phones, our laptops, but most importantly, our minds.
Some have characterized the current decade as the harbinger of the “fifth industrial revolution,”[11] where the boundary between online and offline life is fully disappearing. Today’s humans are the last generation to remember a clear distinction between the two. The rise of AI and networked environments have created the digitization of life, where transient moments, like an embarrassing public meltdown, risk permanence through social media and life being constantly filmed.
As of April 2025, there were 5.31 billion social media users worldwide, equating to 64.7 percent of the global population.[12] In the past 12 months alone, 241 million new users joined social media, resulting in an annualized growth of 4.7 percent.[13]This increase in new social media users outpaces the global population growth of 0.9 percent, meaning social media outpaces population growth by more than five to one.[14] As a result, it is likely nearly every human will have a social media account at some point in the future. Nearly every human, then, will be plugged into a place that does not care about their privacy.
Despite overwhelming survey data suggesting people “care” about privacy, behavioural patterns suggest otherwise.[15] Even though privacy continues to be a hot topic, social media is growing and becoming enmeshed in everyday life. The two forces seem to be battling it out, but really, social media and technology are expanding, and privacy is not. Many careers are now built on social media and there is a growing necessity to be online as social pressure builds, especially to young people. And once people are on, it’s hard not to get hooked.
Social media’s impact, for instance, is especially felt on the mental well-being of adolescents, whose brain development is especially susceptible to “social pressure, peer opinion and social comparison.”[16] The prefrontal cortex, the area of the brain responsible for regulating thoughts, actions and emotions, is not fully developed until the age of 25.[17] All the while, the nucleus accumbens, the area of the brain that directs motivation to seek rewards, also develops during adolescence.[18] Youths require “high excitement and low effort to get them engaged,”[19] meaning their neurodevelopmental profile is easily exploited by the structure of social media, which prioritizes viewing time and provides plenty of excitement and low effort.[20] Young people are now taught that their lives are meant to be shared online, including parts once considered private.
This may be no fault of the users themselves. The addictive nature of social media is programmed into platforms that are structurally designed to reward low effort hits of dopamine.[21] With facial recognition, digital marketing, and predictive analytics, privacy violations no longer require surveillance. They are algorithmically derived from everyday use of addictive technology.
In this clash between privacy and technology, it is not just our data that is at stake, it is our very capacity to exist unobserved. If this trajectory continues unchallenged, the “right to be left alone”[22] may become nothing more than a nostalgic memory.
3. Why Manitoba: Privacy Law in the Prairie Province
With the battle between privacy and technology in full force, there is no better time to examine Manitoba’s legislative stance on the issue.
Manitoba is one of only five provinces in Canada, alongside British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Quebec, and Newfoundland and Labrador, with a statutory tort for invasion of privacy.[23] Section 2(1) of Manitoba’s Privacy Act provides that:
“A person who substantially, unreasonably, and without claim of right, violates the privacy of another person, commits a tort against that other person”[24]
Section 3 of the Act outlines specific examples, including violations by surveillance, listening to or recording of conversations, unauthorized use of name, likeness, or voice of a person, and use of a person’s personal documents without consent.[25] A notable feature of the Act is that it does not require the violation to be wilful. Instead, it offers a defence if the defendant can demonstrate that they did not reasonably know their actions would result in a breach of privacy.[26]
Like several other provinces, Manitoba has enacted targeted legislation like the Intimate Images Protection Act (IIPA), which addresses the non-consensual distribution of intimate images without requiring proof of damage.[27] In June 2024, however, the IIPA was amended to include images generated or altered by artificial intelligence (AI) or software. Alongside Saskatchewan, Manitoba is now one of only two provinces in Canada to address digitally altered intimate images.[28] This substantial amendment to the IIPA positions Manitoba as a national leader in privacy legislation, particularly in responding to the growing concerns surrounding artificial intelligence and image-based harm.
The 2022 decision in Roque v. Peters (2022 MBQB 24) demonstrates the practical reach of Manitoba’s Privacy Act and the IIPA.[29] The plaintiff, Brittany Roque, sued the defendant, Terry Lynn Peters, for providing private images of Roque to the Brandon Police Service without Roque’s consent. Roque brought claims under both the IIPA, for the non-consensual distribution of intimate images, and The Privacy Act, for breach of privacy.[30] The court awarded $30,000 in general damages for the privacy violation and an additional $15,000 in aggravated damages, citing the defendant’s malicious intent and the serious impact on Roque’s mental health.[31] Roque v. Peters serves as a concrete example of how Manitoba’s privacy legislation functions in practice and reflects the broader evolution of Canadian jurisprudence in response to emerging privacy harms.
At the federal level, The Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) governs how federally regulated businesses handle personal information.[32] Enacted in 2000, many see the Act as outdated in fighting the growing threat technology poses to privacy rights. PIPEDA, for example, lacks adequate enforcement mechanisms as the Privacy Commissioner cannot issue binding orders, and individuals cannot initiate private legal actions for violations.[33] A proposed overhaul in 2022 through Bill C-27 was ultimately shelved in the wake of the 2025 federal election, leaving federal privacy law in limbo.[34]
In addition to statutory law, Manitoba’s courts draw from Canadian jurisprudence, applying Section 8 of the Charter (search and seizure) to different privacy contexts. SCC cases like R v. Jarvis (2019), R v. Fearon (2014), Jones v. Tsige (2012), and others have built up privacy jurisprudence not just as criminal matters, but as civil, constitutional, and social questions.
In the ongoing conflict between privacy and technology, Manitoba, and Canada more broadly, sit at a unique jurisdictional position, where legislation meets both jurisprudence and an urgent need to build stronger legal protections against technological intrusion. For legal scholars, policymakers, and citizens alike, studying privacy in Manitoba is not only timely, but necessary. As technology continues to permeate daily life, Manitoba offers a distinctive look into both the protective potential of privacy legislation and the growing need for its expansion.
[1] R v. Tessling, 2004 SCC 67 at para 25.
[2] Samuel D. Warren & Louis D. Brandeis, “The Right to Privacy” (1890) 4:5 Harvard L Rev 193 at 195 [Brandeis].
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Alan F. Westin, Privacy and Freedom (New York: Atheneum Books, 1967).
[6] Ibid.
[7] Irwin Altman, The Environment and Social Behavior (Monterey, CA: Brooks/Cole Publishing, 1975).
[8] Ibid.
[9] Helen Nissenbaum, Privacy in Context: Technology, Policy, and the Integrity of Social Life (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2010).
[10] Ibid.
[11] Alok Medikepura Anil, “Technology convergence is leading the way for the fifth industrial revolution”, World Economic Forum (13 January 2025), online: <https://www.weforum.org/stories/2025/01/technology-convergence-is-leading-the-way-for-accelerated-innovation-in-emerging-technology-areas/>.
[12] DataReportal, “Global Social Media Statistics” online: <https://datareportal.com/social-media-users>.
[13] Ibid.
[14] World Bank Group, “Population growth (annual %)” online: <https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.GROW>.
[15] Arathi Sethumadhavan, “Do people even care about data privacy in the digital age?”, Big Think (8 October 2021), online: <https://bigthink.com/the-present/data-privacy-statistics/>.
[16] Samantha Bradshaw and Tracy Vaillancourt, Freedom of Thought, Social Media, and the Teen Brain,(Waterloo, Ontario: Centre for International Governance Innovation, 2024) at 1 [Bradshaw].
[17] Ibid at 5.
[18] B. J. Casey, Sarah Getz and Adriana Galvan, “The adolescent brain” (2008)28:1 DevelopmentalRev, online: <www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2500212/>.
[19] Bradshaw, supra note 16 at 5.
[20] Ibid at 2.
[21] Ibid at 5.
[22] Brandeis, supra note 2 at 195.
[23] LuAnne Morrow, Steven Climenhaga, & Ethan Guthro, “Privacy Torts” (6 November 2024), online: (Lexis) LexisNexis Canada.
[24] Privacy Act, RSM 1987, c P125, CCSM, s 2(1).
[25] Ibid at s. 3 (a)-(d).
[26] Ibid at ss 2(1) and 5(b).
[27] Intimate Images Protection Act, c I87, CCSM, ss 11(1) and 11(2).
[28] Éric Turcotte,“Non-Consensual Distribution of Intimate Images: Diverging Approaches to Remedies in the Prairie Provinces”, (2024) 87:1 Sask L Rev 51 at 55.
[29] Roque v. Peters, 2022 MBQB 34.
[30] Ibid at 2.
[31] Ibid at 199.
[32] Personal Information and Protection of Electronic Documents Act, SC 2000, c 5.
[33] Yves Faguy, “Privacy bill fails on meaningful consent”, CBA National Magazine (22 November 2022), online: <https://nationalmagazine.ca/en-ca/articles/law/hot-topics-in-law/2022/privacy-bill-fails-on-meaningful-consent>.
[34] Parliament of Canada, “C-27, 44nd Parliament, 1st session, Monday, November 22, 2021, to Monday, January 6, 2025”, online: <https://www.parl.ca/legisinfo/en/bill/44-1/c-27>.
The views and opinions expressed in the blogs and case reporter are the views of their authors, and do not represent the views of the Desautels Centre for Private Enterprise and the Law, the Faculty of Law, or the University of Manitoba. Academic Members of the University of Manitoba are entitled to academic freedom in the context of a respectful working and learning environment.