Royal Navy staff unwittingly revealed what appears to be the secret location of a nuclear submarine through their use of a popular fitness app.
Royal Navy staff at the Faslane base inadvertently revealed when they were on board the top secret ship.
The base, found northwest of Glasgow, is home to Britain’s Trident nuclear deterrent and officers there used Strava to track their runs.
Without realising it, they revealed when they were on shift at the base, as well as leaking their names and addresses.
But potentially worse than that, more than one user posted a run with a GPS log of what appeared to be them onboard the ships, The Times reported.
This come after a 2018 update including a then new feature of the app which revealed a number of US army bases in the Middle East where soldiers had been recording their runs.
It is unclear at that time if users were aware they were revealing their personal information through the app.
There are several run segments at Faslane base which appear to have been created by Navy officers and those with access to the base.
One is titled Race to the home of the UK submarine service and another is called RM BFT - an abbreviation for the Royal Marines basic fitness test.
The leak of personal, sometimes sensitive, data through fitness apps like Strava has been coined “fit-leaking’ by John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab, who specialises in secure communications.
They said this incident was the “canary in the coal mine” and a stark warning to security services moving forward.
They branded it “jaw-dropping” warned that consumers having trackers in their pockets at all times was the norm now.
The navy has previously warned officers about posting location data online.
Its advice page on social media says: “Whether you are serving personnel, their friends or family, it’s important that you avoid posting any information online that might compromise an operation or put personnel in danger, including photos or videos.”
Some of the navy staff are believed to have used the 'offset' feature which obscures the start and end of their run are.
A spokesperson for the Royal Navy said: “We take the security of our team very seriously, which is why we regularly advise our personnel on the use of apps and social media websites. This includes turning off geo-tagging on devices to prevent their location from being revealed whilst exercising.”
