Sports apps are banned for military personnel, because it appears to be quite easy to retrieve private data. A bad thing because in the case of a soldier, that could be sensitive information. But it also means that your information might be easy to find if you track your run.
What's going on?
Earlier this year, Polar released a world map with all users' activities. A beautiful map, on which each running lap and bicycle lap is colorfully displayed. Especially in the Western world there was a lot of activity, but there were also circles visible in deserted areas. Researchers soon discovered that some of those places are military bases, some of which should even be kept secret.
Data can be linked together
De Correspondent conducted research together with research group Bellingcat and discovered that it became relatively easy to extract personal data from the app. If a person runs around the building of a military service and also regularly starts and ends in the same place in a Vinex neighborhood in North Brabant, then the link to that person's home address is easily made.
Want to know more? You can read exactly how the investigation was conducted and what was found in this article by De Correspondent.
How do you keep your information in your app private?
