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Data shows secret locations

· In the media

Last year Strava, the fitness tracking app, proudly revealed ‘The Global Heatmap’ which shows every single sport activity ever uploaded to Strava. Next to showing interesting patterns like the cycle route at the estate of the King of the Netherlands is also shows locations of unsuspecting military.

The app has been used to discover sensitive information about the location and staffing of military bases and spy outposts. When soldiers forget to turn off their tracking after exercise, they have unintentionally shared their locations and routes. Especially at thinly-populated areas where Internet and smartwear are special, a location easily pops up when there is a lot of activity.

The Dutch Ministry of Defense will investigate the case for Dutch military and will take its measures if necessary.

By combining rumors, known information and Strava-activities online data analysts are able to gather new insights. Most speculations about secret locations can be found at Twitter.

Source: AD.nl