Hundreds of soldiers at UK military bases are exposing their location on Strava

More than 500 people working at the British military bases have reportedly revealed their locations and personal details on the fitness app Strava.

Officials reportedly fear the data could reveal sensitive military information and expose details about serving military personnel.

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Reporters were able to track one individual to the exact nuclear submarine they were deployed onto at HMNB Clyde in Faslane.

Staff at RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus and Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, which are both involved in US air strikes against Iran, also logged runs on the app.

Runners at the joint UK-US base at Diego Garcia jokingly called their route in the middle of the island ‘Security Breach’.

One senior military source based at British military headquarters in Northwood thought this publicly run information could expose staff to blackmail and coercion and is ‘damn good intelligence for the enemy’, the i Paper reports.

Dan Lomas, a security and intelligence expert at the University of Nottingham, told the outlet: ‘The fact that individuals are using personal accounts in a restricted area allows foreign states to piece together small pieces of information that you can potentially build up about an individual’s life.’
Conservative MP Ben Obese-Jecty, a former army officer, wrote on X: ‘I stopped using Strava when I became an MP and I locked down my profile long before that.

‘The app has numerous features to enable you to keep your data private.

‘It beggars belief that our armed forces don’t have a grip of this given the current, and very real, threat posed by sub-threshold activity from our adversaries.’
A spokesperson from the Ministry of Defence said the use of fitness apps like Strava is not considered an operational threat and that the locations of bases are in the public domain.

‘We take the security of our personnel very seriously and keep guidance for them under constant review,’ they added.

The risk posed by military personnel using Strava was revealed two weeks ago, when a French aricraft carrier’s location was exposed by an officer logging his runs around the ship’s deck, Le Monde revealed.

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