French Aircraft Carrier Located in Real Time Via Fitness App

French newspaper Le Monde was able to locate a French aircraft carrier in real time using publicly available profile information of a French Navy officer on the fitness app Strava.

While logging his daily run onboard the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle, the officer inadvertently posted the current location of the ship he was on publicly and in real time to his Strava account.

This level of operational negligence seems almost comical coming from a military, especially during the current conflict.

This is just the latest in a series of events where public Strava data was used to locate military bases, ships, etc.

Le Monde contacted the French Armed Forces General Staff, who said the behavior “does not comply with current guidelines," which "sailors are regularly made aware of."

They went on to say that "appropriate measures will be taken by the command."

Le Monde says they were able to identify other sailors via their public Strava data as well. The paper has successfully done this multiple times over the years, and yet it keeps happening.

In one incident in January 2025, they were able to detect the patrol schedules of French nuclear submarines.

In a three part series, they revealed how leaders Emmanuel Macron, Joe Biden, Donald Trump, and Vladimir Putin can be tracked via their security guard’s Strava workout data.

Just to reiterate: this is all public data, Strava was not compromised at all.

Many workout apps offer the ability to sync your workout data to a server, and even compare with friends. However, Strava seems to encourage making your workout data public.

In their Strava Labs page, they brag about the “trillions of GPS data points” in their public dataset.

Some projects they showcase include Flyby, a feature that lets you see the exact positions of people who you passed by during your activities, and Roster, a sort of social networking feature that lets you visualize your group activities.

It is important to note that Strava provides privacy controls for profiles, so anyone in a sensitive situation, like, say, inside a nuclear submarine base, should take precautions to not reveal sensitive data.

Generally, though, it’s best to use fitness apps that support end-to-end encryption and don’t publicly reveal your workout data.