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- The Polar fitness app exhibited security flaws exposing the location data of its users, according to a joint investigation by De Correspondent and Bellingcat
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- Polar has since suspended his "explore" map and has stated that there was no data breach because the data obtained came from public and not private profiles.
- However, the investigation claims to be able to obtain information from
A joint investigation by De Correspondent and Bellingcat revealed that Polar Flow's Polar Flow fitness app exposed the details of geolocation of its users.
Polar produces watches and fitness tracking equipment, all of which connect to its Polar Flow app. According to the survey, the activity tracking map of the application (called "Explorer") has revealed the personal addresses of thousands of users, including soldiers and secret agents. This is partly because people turn on or off their fitness equipment when they are near their homes, unintentionally revealing their place of residence.
The survey targeted two hundred sensitive locations and used 660 people in 69 sites. nationalities. Both organizations found areas as a military base, chose an exercise that had been published there, and then simply looked at where that same user profile had been.
The investigation found the names and addresses of staff of several intelligence agencies. NSA, US Secret Services and MI6. Even sensitive staff often used their real names, making them easy to identify.
Polar issued a statement last Friday stating that he had suspended his "Explore" card. "It's important to understand that Polar did not disclose data and that there was no violation of private data," Polar said.
"Currently, the vast majority of Polar customers maintain default private profiles and private sessions. However, the survey says that despite the fact that many users have deprived their profiles, they were able to find the details of users due to an "omission in the Polar application". [19659012] The survey draws a parallel with the fitness application Strava, which revealed in January this year sensitive locations around the world.
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