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The naval base at Faslane on the Clyde hosts the UK's nuclear submarines which are armed with Trident missiles (Picture: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)One MP said the use of the fitness tracking app by personnel “beggars belief”
Military personnel at Faslane have been criticised for revealing their locations inside the naval base by tracking their runs on exercise platform Strava.
An investigation found that 110 people have tracked their runs at Faslane on the Clyde, home to the UK’s Trident nuclear weapons, since the start of the year with the information then publicly available on the app.
The findings, by the i paper, raised concerns that adversaries could gain intelligence about the sensitive site.
It comes after an an Iranian man and a Romanian woman were arrested last month after allegedly trying to enter Faslane, known as HM Naval Base Clyde.
The man was charged and later freed pending further inquiries, with the woman released without charge.
The i reported that one route logged on Strava within the site’s restricted area revealed details that could help identify the specific nuclear submarine to which the user was assigned.
The MoD said that use of the fitness app on bases posed no threat to operational security.
But Ben Obese-Jecty, the Conservative MP for Huntingdon, criticised the military over the issue given the current threat environment.
The former army officer wrote on X: “I stopped using Strava when I became an MP and I locked down my profile long before that. The app has numerous features to enable you to keep your data private.
“It beggars belief that our armed forces don’t have a grip of this given the current, and very real, threat posed by sub-threshold activity from our adversaries.”
A total of 520 members of the armed forces at some of the UK’s most sensitive sites have shared their runs publicly on the app, according to the i paper.
Personnel stationed at overseas bases, including RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus and Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, both of which have played a role in the US’s military campaign against Iran, were also identifiable through the app, the paper found.
Both bases have been targeted by Iran in retaliation for the US-Israeli war against it.
A Ministry of Defence spokesperson said: “We take the security of our personnel very seriously and keep guidance for them under constant review.”
The use of fitness apps such as Strava do not present an operational threat, with the location of the bases in the public domain, the department suggested.