Technology-facilitated gender-based violence

About technology-facilitated GBV

Technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV) can happen through a variety of technology and digital platforms including: 

TFGBV can include:

• online threats or insults
• online harassment
• stalking someone using GPS or social media
• forcing a partner to share passwords
• sharing someone’s sexual images without consent
• hacking
• surveillance/tracking
• impersonating, harassment/spamming
• revenge porn
• malicious distribution
• denial of services

Impacts of technology-facilitated GBV

The impacts of TFGBV can be as severe and long-lasting as those of in-person violence. Harms resulting from TFGBV may be:

TFGBV can also increase needs for health care, judicial, and social services.^{Footnote 1}

TFGBV can negatively impact a person’s ability to exercise free expression, disrupt their sense of security, violate their human rights and privacy, and impact their ability to fully participate in economic, social, and democratic life.^{Footnote 2}

TFGBV is unique in that a perpetrator can virtually follow a victim/survivor everywhere, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and reach them in places where they have traditionally been or felt safe, like at home.

Other specific characteristics of TFGBV include:

• the potential for anonymity
• speed (the ease with which information can be known and spread can escalate the violence quickly)
• increased access to the victim/survivor
• larger audience
• the virtual impossibility of eliminating harmful content
• excessive contact
• invasion of privacy

How to respond to technology-facilitated GBV

If you experience or witness TFGBV, there are ways you can respond. 

For further information on how to safely respond to TFGBV, visit the resources section below. 

Facts on technology-facilitated GBV

While technology and its uses and impacts keep changing, there are some key facts to consider:

Affected populations

Unwanted online behaviours explicitly related to gender-based violence, include sharing intimate images without consent, pressure to share suggestive or explicit images, receiving suggestive or explicit images without giving consent, and threatening or aggressive messages.^{Footnote 3}

• Overall, one in ten (11%) Canadians had experienced this kind of behaviour online in the year prior to the 2025 survey, including a slightly higher proportion of women (12%) than men (9%)^{Footnote 4} 
• Almost one-fifth of young women and girls aged 15 to 24 years had experienced unwanted behaviours online, along with 12% of men and boys in that age group^{Footnote 5} 
• For women, the most common types of unwanted behaviour experienced online were receiving suggestive or explicit images without consent (7%) and receiving threatening or aggressive messages as the only recipient (6%)^{Footnote 6}

Protective measures

• Women were more likely than men to have taken a protective measure online due to harassment in 2018 (28% versus 19%)^{Footnote 7} 
  • Protective or avoidance measures online can include limiting one’s Internet use or participation on social media, blocking others, deleting accounts or changing usernames, among other potential actions taken by an individual to protect themselves against harassment online

Cyberbullying

• Among Internet users in Canada, approximately 17% of the population aged 15 to 29 reported having experienced cyberbullying or cyberstalking at some point between 2009 and 2014, representing about 1.1 million people^{Footnote 8}  
• Results from a non-representative survey of trans youth in Canada conducted in 2014 show that among younger respondents (ages 14 to 18) 39% said someone had made them feel unsafe online, and 33% said they had been bullied online in the past 12 months
• Among older trans youth (ages 19 to 25), 44% reported having received threatening or aggressive emails or messages, 40% having been the target of hateful comments, and 30% having been cyberbullied^{Footnote 9}

Resources

For youth and parents

• Find resources on Online violence
• The Royal Canadian Mounted Police’s Centre for Youth Crime Prevention provides age-appropriate information, tools and resources
• Public Safety Canada’s Cyberbullying webpage has links to resources for teens and parents
• PREV Net has many resources funded by the Public Health Agency of Canada for youth, parents and educators on youth dating violence and the impacts of TFGBV

For adults

• Provincial and territorial resources on gender-based violence 
• Tech Safety Canada is a WAGE-funded toolkit providing additional information about tech-facilitated violence laws and resources for victims and survivors of TFGBV