A French aircraft carrier’s location was exposed after a naval officer recorded his workout on the running app Strava without making his profile private amid the war in Iran.
By logging his run through Strava, the seaman revealed the location of the French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle in the Mediterranean Sea near Cyprus, making the vessel’s exact location publicly accessible, according to reporting from France’s Le Monde.
The security risk comes as France, alongside the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, Italy, and the Netherlands, announced Thursday a joint effort to help secure the Strait of Hormuz, which has been out of use for vital oil shipments amid conflict in the region.
French President Emmanuel Macron had previously been critical of U.S. military action in Iran, but the countries’ joint statement stressed the importance of freedom of navigation and the dangers of closing the Strait of Hormuz to global energy supplies. The statement was unclear about the level of military assistance that would be provided.
Le Monde reported that the runner logged his workout on March 13, over a week before the United States’s European allies signaled they would provide assistance in the strait between Iran and Oman.
UK, FRANCE, JAPAN, GERMANY, AND OTHERS VOICE READINESS TO CONTRIBUTE TO SECURE STRAIT OF HORMUZ
France has struggled with security risks due to personnel using Strava in the past. Le Monde found that Macron’s security detail, as well as that of U.S. presidents and Russia’s Vladimir Putin, had used the app as recently as last year, thereby revealing their identities through the app’s location-sharing feature.
The Department of War banned the use of fitness-tracking apps and wearable fitness trackers in 2018 after the location and staff at some covert military bases were leaked through Strava. A heat map created from soldiers logging their workouts on Strava showed the internal layout of several military bases as runners unintentionally drew the grid of the bases.