Bodyguards’ fitness app reveals locations of Swedish leaders
LONDON: Trying to keep fit with runs through Central Park, a jog around a tropical island and bicycle ride around Stockholm, bodyguards in Sweden inadvertently revealed secret locations of Swedish leaders they were assigned to protect.An investigation by a Swedish newspaper revealed bodyguards for Sweden’s royal family and PM Ulf Kristersson uploaded their workout routes to Strava, a fitness app that allows users to map and share their movements. The popular app has built a global social media community, but users’ enthusiastic uploads have also raised questions about data privacy, especially among security personnel.In Sweden, the data reveal added to security concerns of a country that was recently rattled by what it called an “act of sabotage” against an undersea cable. This week, Swedish daily newspaper Dagens Nyheter reported it tracked over 1,400 workouts by seven bodyguards over last year. The data showed the bodyguards trained in the Alps, along Ukraine’s border with Poland and at a military base in Mali. Sweden’s security police confirmed the data was linked to some employees of secret service.Their routes gave away the address of the PM’s private residence. The Strava data also revealed a high-level meeting in Norway in June 2024, unannounced at the time, between Kristersson and leaders of Norway and Finland. Sweden’s security police said it was investigating the effect of the publicised data. “To be clear, there has not been a leak or breach of user data,” a Strava spokesperson said in a statement Friday.
