A fitness tracking app called Strava that posted a map with potentially sensitive information about its users is sparking concerns over how similar services protect personal data— and raising questions about what users can do to protect themselves. Strava is among several apps and devices like Fitbit and Garmin that are part of the surging fitness tracker market. In most cases, the apps or devices keep tabs on basic health information such as steps taken, heart rate, or sleep.
Strava, which describes itself as a "social network for those who strive," works with most phones and GPS-enabled fitness watches. Since 2015, Strava has published a global heat map detailing the activity of its 27 million global users, based on their uploaded GPS data. The heatmaps let users find new exercise routes or discover the most popular in new locations. They also may be giving away military secrets. Security experts over the weekend questioned whether the user-generated map could not only show the locations of military bases, but specific routes most heavily traveled as military personnel unintentionally shared their jogging paths and other routes. Strava's own website, noted The Guardian, allowed users to find, via a leaderboard of competing runners, the names of service members who had raced one potential stretch outside an Afghan military base.
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https://www.cnn.com/2018/01/28/politics/strava-military-bases-location/index.html
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