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Swedish secret service bodyguards who uploaded details of their running and cycling routes on the fitness app Strava have been accused of exposing sensitive information about the prime minister’s location and risking his safety.
On at least 35 occasions, bodyguards for Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson shared their workouts on the app and revealed his location, routes and movements — including details of hotels and his private residences — Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter reported.
The newspaper tracked more than 1,400 workouts uploaded to Strava by seven bodyguards who have protected individuals in the Swedish government over the past year.
One bodyguard posted on Strava details of a run in Bodø in Norway while Kristersson was meeting with his Norwegian and Finnish counterparts, Jonas Gahr Støre and Alexander Stubb, the report said. A few months later, Kristersson shared a photo on Instagram of the three leaders running together.
The sensitive information leaked on Strava also showed Kristersson’s running routes and locations of overnight trips overseas, including a private family holiday to Åland, an autonomous region of Finland, last October, according to Dagens Nyheter.
The data was also linked to the Swedish royal family, the leader of the Social Democrats and former Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson, and Jimmie Åkesson, head of the government-backing Sweden Democrats party.
After the article was published, the Strava profiles in question were either made private or taken offline. Sweden’s security service (Sapo) said it would review its procedures.
“This is information that could be used to map the activities of the security service. In what way it could have had an impact we are now investigating,” a spokesperson said.
This is the latest in a string of security gaffes involving Strava and the security of heads of state.
Earlier this year, French newspaper Le Monde revealed that crew members of France’s nuclear submarines had inadvertently given away sensitive information about their positions and patrol schedules by sharing their workouts on the fitness app.
In October, Le Monde published another investigation related to Strava, revealing that the whereabouts of French President Emmanuel Macron and US President Joe Biden could be traced because their security agents were using the app while on detail.
And back in 2018, military analysts observed that soldiers using the app to track their runs were giving away the locations of secret US army bases and spy outposts.
