Privacy

Last updated 2026-08-13.

This policy accurately describes what the software does; a test fails if it stops being accurate. It has not been reviewed by a lawyer, and it must be before RxMonitor accepts a real account.

The short version

Everything on RxMonitor is readable without an account. Searching for a medication, reading its record, its recalls and its Ontario coverage requires no sign-in and stores nothing about you.

An account exists for one purpose: so we can email you when the public record for a medication you watch changes. If you never create one, there is nothing in this policy that applies to you.

There is no analytics, no advertising network, and no tracking cookie on this site.

What we store if you make an account

One record, against your email address. It holds exactly the following and nothing else.

Your email address: It identifies the account and is where alerts are sent. You give it by signing in.
The medications you watch: Each one is stored as its drug identification number, the brand name as it was when you added it, and Health Canada’s active-ingredient group number. All three are needed to tell you what changed — including after a product is cancelled and leaves the public record, which is exactly when you would want to hear about it.
Your province, if you set one: Ontario is the only province whose drug coverage RxMonitor holds. This is used to decide whether to send you Ontario formulary changes, so that a reader elsewhere is not emailed about coverage that does not apply to them.
Whether you opted in to possible recall matches: Some Health Canada notices name a brand that several companies sell, so they cannot be pinned to one product. These are off by default and this records your choice.

Values the system generates to do its job. None of them is information you gave us, and none describes you.

A record identifier: The database’s own key for your record.
An unsubscribe code: A long random string that makes the unsubscribe link in your emails work without asking you to sign in. It is not derived from anything about you.
The date you first watched something: Records when the account began.
The date you unsubscribed, if you have: Stops further email. Watching a medication again clears it.
Where the subscription came from: Records that you subscribed through the website rather than by another route.
Which data update you were last told about: A marker that stops the same change being emailed twice, and stops a new subscriber being mailed about changes that happened before they signed up.

Which medications you watch says a good deal about your health. A watch list is not a list of preferences — it is close to a list of what someone is being treated for, and we treat it that way. It is never sold, never shared with an advertiser, never used to select what you are shown on this site, and it is deleted the moment you ask.

RxMonitor takes no advertising from pharmaceutical manufacturers, and the single paid placement on this site is structurally unable to see which medication you are reading about — let alone which ones you watch.

Cookies

One cookie, rx_session, set only when you sign in. It keeps you signed in for 5 days and is removed when you sign out or delete your account. It carries no information about what you read.

There is no consent banner on this site because there is nothing to consent to: this cookie is strictly necessary to keep you signed in, and there is no other one.

Signing in

Sign-in is handled by Firebase Authentication, a Google service. If you sign in with Google, Google knows you signed in to RxMonitor; if you sign in with an email address and password, Firebase holds that credential. We never see your password.

Deleting your RxMonitor account deletes our record, not your Firebase sign-in identity. That identity is held by Google under its own terms, and removing it is a request to us — write to privacy@rxmonitor.ca and we will delete it.

Who else can see it

Google Cloud / Firebase — the database the record lives in and the authentication service, as our processor.
Our email provider — receives your address in order to deliver an alert, along with the contents of that alert, which name the medications the alert is about.

Nobody else. We do not sell personal information, and we do not share it with advertisers or data brokers.

How long we keep it

Until you delete it. There is no automatic expiry, and that is a deliberate choice rather than an omission: a watch list that quietly deleted itself after a period of quiet would stop sending recall alerts to someone who still wanted them, without telling them it had stopped.

Unsubscribing stops the email and keeps your watch list, so you can start again without rebuilding it. That is why deleting is offered separately, and in the same places.

When you delete, the record is removed outright. Nothing is retained to remember you by: no tombstone, no suppression list, no hashed address.

Deleting everything

Two ways, both immediate:

Signed in, from the medications you watch — the delete control is at the bottom of the page.
From the unsubscribe link at the bottom of any alert email, without signing in. That link is the only credential needed, so an account you no longer have access to can still be deleted.

If neither works for you, write to privacy@rxmonitor.ca.

Your rights

Canadian federal privacy law gives you the right to know what an organisation holds about you, to correct it, and to withdraw your consent to it being held. The list above is the first, the second is a message to the address below, and the delete control is the third.

Changes

The date at the top changes when this does. Because the document is generated from the code it describes, a change to what is stored cannot ship without this page changing with it.

Contact

privacy@rxmonitor.ca

See also the terms of use, and about the data for where every figure on this site comes from.

Information only — this is not medical advice. RxMonitor shows what Health Canada and provincial drug programs have published about authorised products. It does not tell you what to take, whether a medication is right for you, or what dose to use.

Always talk to a pharmacist or physician about your own medication, and never start, stop or change one based on what you read here.