Swedish bodyguards’ fitness app data reveals private locations of royal family

Sweden’s national security service said it was investigating reports that data shared by bodyguards on a fitness app had exposed the private locations of some of the country’s most powerful figures.

“The Swedish Security Police take the information very seriously,” a spokesperson for Säkerhetspolisen (SÄPO) wrote in a statement shared Thursday. “This is a matter of data that could be used to gather information about the activities of our Service.”

“We are now in the process of investigating what effect this might have had,” the spokesperson said.

It comes after the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter reported earlier this week that seven members of the security service were sharing details of their running and cycling routes on the fitness app Strava, inadvertently revealing the locations of the king and queen’s personal vacations.

That included trips to a private island in the Seychelles, the mountain village of Storlien in northern Sweden and, most recently, to a luxury villa on the French Riviera in June.

Earlier reports from the newspaper also found that the guards’ workout data on the fitness app had revealed the private details of Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson on at least 35 occasions, including his running routes, trips abroad and private address.

Other information uploaded to Strava was also linked to former Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson and the leader of the Sweden Democrats party, Jimmie Åkesson.

“Dignitaries that our Service is responsible for protecting are subject to several layers of protection, where their close protection by bodyguards is one layer,” the SÄPO spokesperson said in their statement, adding that the security agency was aware of the risks presented by the leaked information.

“Our Service is now taking the necessary steps to ensure that our procedures are followed closely, so that this does not happen again,” the statement said.

The Swedish Royal Court declined to comment on the reports, citing official policy on security-related matters.

This is not the first time that publicly available data on Strava has breached official security protocols.

In 2017, a global heat map published by the app inadvertently revealed the location of U.S. military bases in Syria, Afghanistan and the United Kingdom. In 2022, the app’s features enabled the identification and tracking of security personnel working at military bases in Israel.

An earlier investigation by the French newspaper Le Monde in October 2024 also found the app had revealed the movements and locations of other world leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron and then-President Joe Biden.

A spokesperson for Strava, whose name means “strive” in Swedish, told NBC News that there was no leak or breach of user data in the latest instance.

“Users can also control the visibility of their activities, their routes, and whether each activity is public or private,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “We expect Strava users working in sensitive professions to leverage the privacy settings available.”