- A French naval officer accidentally revealed the location of his warship
- This happened when he uploaded his fitness data to Strava.
- The fitness app has already compromised security in the same way
You might not think that running Strava regularly poses a security risk, but when public activity logging and sensitive military data are involved, things can be very different. That’s exactly what a French naval officer discovered after his training reportedly revealed the location of a French aircraft carrier en route to the Middle East.
According to Le Monde (via BBC News), the officer – referred to only as Arthur – ran for 35 minutes on March 13 (see image below). Unlike most runners, however, his exercise took place on the upper deck of the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle, which was deployed to the Eastern Mediterranean in light of the United States and Israel’s ongoing conflict with Iran.
By recording the activity and uploading it to the Strava app, Arthur apparently revealed his location – and, by extension, that of the ship he was serving on. This posed a significant risk to the ship’s security, given that such location data can be viewed publicly in the Strava app (scroll down to learn how to disable it).
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According to Le Monde, the ship was located northwest of Cyprus at the time and about 100 km from the Turkish coast. In a statement to the AFP news agency, the French armed forces said the officer’s actions were “not in accordance with current instructions” and that action would be taken if proven correct.
How to keep your Strava data private
Careless use of fitness and wellness apps has led to similar situations in the past.
As cited by BBC News, French President Emmanuel Macron’s location has been revealed multiple times due to Strava runs accidentally shared by his bodyguards. Strava data also allegedly compromised the locations of former US President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin, while in 2018 the platform allegedly revealed the locations of US military bases.
This type of incident may not particularly concern you: after all, most people don’t exercise aboard warships or while protecting high-ranking politicians. But the privacy implications of this public recording of exercises may impact your own privacy and security.
For example, stalkers might know where a potential victim is by tracking their frequent exercise locations. Burglars, on the other hand, might be able to tell when you run out of the house, giving them the right time to break into your home.
There are steps you can take to protect your location data in the Strava app (on iOS and Android). First, go to the “You” tab at the bottom right, then go to the Settings (top right) > Privacy controls > Activities. Here you can ensure that your activities are visible to “Only You”.
In Privacy Controls you can also access Map visibility and choose “Hide your activity cards completely from others”, then enable/disable “Hide all maps”. This is where you can also find what we used to call “privacy zones”, in the “hide activity start and finish points” option. For more information about Strava’s privacy controls, visit its Privacy Center.
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