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Strava denies Global Heatmap uses full ride data and poses security risk

Says hidden users’ ‘hidden locations’ were respected when collating the data

Strava has denied suggestions that its Global Heatmap ignores users’ privacy settings in response to claims that it features rides that start from people’s homes even where there is a privacy zone in place.

Strava Global Heatmap, unveiled last week, lets you explore where people are running and riding around the world in minute detail via an interactive map.

However, some have expressed concern that there is a little too much detail in what’s presented. Several members of the road.cc team checked where they live and the map appears to show activity in and out of their house or driveway.

Strava allows users to set ‘hidden locations’ centred on a particular address – typically your home. If your activity starts or ends within a 500m-1km radius of the address, the start and/or end of the activity will be hidden from other users.

There is also a tick box within settings stating whether or not you are happy for your public activity data to be included in Strava Metro and the Heatmap.

Strava pointed us towards a post on its engineering blog where it states that privacy zones and the opt-out option were both respected when compiling the data.

In a section titled “Input Data and Filtering” it says: “Most importantly, our platform has numerous privacy rules that must be respected,” and states: “Private activities are excluded outright; Activities are cropped to respect user defined privacy zones; Athletes with the Metro/heatmap opt-out privacy setting have all data excluded.”

Gareth Nettleton, VP of Marketing for Strava, said: "Our Global Heatmaps feature heat from over a billion anonymised runs, rides and other activities. As with all Strava features, privacy is a huge consideration. Private activities are excluded from heatmaps outright and activities are cropped to respect any user defined privacy zones. It is also possible to opt out of heatmaps specifically within Strava's privacy settings. We have a set of world-class tools that allow you to manage what you share and we encourage all our members to follow our guidelines on privacy."

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20 comments

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dassie | 6 years ago
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Although I have privacy zones set, I always reset my Garmin as I start a ride, away from the house just up the road before the first intersection.   Failing that, I edit the ends of the gpx track in basecamp post ride.

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Drinfinity | 6 years ago
1 like

Isn't the real test if someone else can see your data in clear? I'm wouldn't be surprised if my data isn't fuzzed when I view it. Don't know if the heat map anonymised just the display, or really cropped the data. 

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DA69 | 6 years ago
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Ah man! Leads right to my house, despite the privacy being set before I took my first Strava ride.

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PpPete | 6 years ago
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Lots of dither going through houses, gardens, fences.... but quite an obvious bright track going up & down my drive.  I can also quite easily identify the addresses of several other prolific cyclists in surrounding area.  They are definitely NOT respecting privacy settings.

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kil0ran replied to PpPete | 6 years ago
1 like

PpPete wrote:

Lots of dither going through houses, gardens, fences.... but quite an obvious bright track going up & down my drive.  I can also quite easily identify the addresses of several other prolific cyclists in surrounding area.  They are definitely NOT respecting privacy settings.

Just wondering - is the heatmap dynamic based on whether you follow them? Can't remember, do followers override the enhanced privacy setting?

 

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asdfqwerty replied to kil0ran | 6 years ago
1 like
kil0ran wrote:

PpPete wrote:

Lots of dither going through houses, gardens, fences.... but quite an obvious bright track going up & down my drive.  I can also quite easily identify the addresses of several other prolific cyclists in surrounding area.  They are definitely NOT respecting privacy settings.

Just wondering - is the heatmap dynamic based on whether you follow them? Can't remember, do followers override the enhanced privacy setting?

 

The sheer amount of data in the heatmap is staggering, so it's static and pre-computed. What you see is what everybody sees.

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mikewood | 6 years ago
1 like

May only be taking out the start and finish. If you popped back home as you'd forgotten something without stopping your ride, it would still show it

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HarryTrauts | 6 years ago
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I don't live on a road and am one of two riders who are likely to ride up the dead end track to my house.  I can't see anything on the Heat Map that gives away any evidence of either of us riding down there.  To be honest, I do as suggested above (most of the time) and don't log rides to and from my back door.  

What is interesting from the Heat Map is seeing that there appear to be people riding through a series of back gardens and fenced and gated plots of land.  These don't seem to be where the GPS has gone a bit stray but well away from roads or tracks.  Interesting.

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crazy-legs replied to HarryTrauts | 6 years ago
2 likes

harragan wrote:

What is interesting from the Heat Map is seeing that there appear to be people riding through a series of back gardens and fenced and gated plots of land.  These don't seem to be where the GPS has gone a bit stray but well away from roads or tracks.  Interesting.

Looking through some of the really high density areas (road circuits like Hillingdon and Salt Ayre are good examples) there's loads of "ghost" tracks that stray out into the neighbouring roads or even rivers. It's mostly satellite errors - GPS updates once a second and at speed on a tight circuit, it'll easily off-read occasionally. Multiply that by thousands of riders a year and ghost tracks will always be there.

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Yorkshire wallet | 6 years ago
4 likes

Just put Halfords Apollo in your equipment listing.

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kil0ran | 6 years ago
1 like

Definitely not respecting mine. Shows tracks in my back garden where I'm taking the bikes to the shed. Particularly noticeable because I'm the only Strava cyclist on my road it would seem.

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crazy-legs replied to kil0ran | 6 years ago
2 likes

kil0ran wrote:

Definitely not respecting mine. Shows tracks in my back garden where I'm taking the bikes to the shed. Particularly noticeable because I'm the only Strava cyclist on my road it would seem.

Why the hell have you got Strava running when you take the bike from the back door to the shed?! Seriously, do you people not crop your rides? Do you just start and end every ride at your front door?

I'd never dream of doing that in spite of privacy settings.

Same with my car sat nav - if someone ever stole my car and programmed "home" into the sat nav to go and break in, they'd find themselves a mile away at a local police station!

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kil0ran replied to crazy-legs | 6 years ago
1 like

crazy-legs wrote:

kil0ran wrote:

Definitely not respecting mine. Shows tracks in my back garden where I'm taking the bikes to the shed. Particularly noticeable because I'm the only Strava cyclist on my road it would seem.

Why the hell have you got Strava running when you take the bike from the back door to the shed?! Seriously, do you people not crop your rides? Do you just start and end every ride at your front door?

I'd never dream of doing that in spite of privacy settings.

Same with my car sat nav - if someone ever stole my car and programmed "home" into the sat nav to go and break in, they'd find themselves a mile away at a local police station!

I've got enhanced privacy switched on and was relying on that. Phone is tucked away in jersey pocket so I kick the ride off at some point between back door and shed, and it probably doesn't get ended until I've had my post-ride cuppa. Once I'm riding I don't want the distraction of fiddling with Strava and juggling 400 quids-worth of smartphone in traffic.

Most of my rides aren't actually from home these days because I do a mixed commute, so it's interesting how hot my back garden is on the heatmap. No-one else in the house using Strava.

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usedtobefaster | 6 years ago
1 like

This is interesting, I was told previously by a friend that a large insurance firm were of the opionion that bike thieves were using unfiltered Strava data, raw data before the privacy zone setting is applied,  to locate their targets.  Since then I've started and stopped my Garmin away from the home so the raw data doesn't have the same start and end of ride location.  Could just be a conspiracy theory of course.

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fenix replied to usedtobefaster | 6 years ago
2 likes
usedtobefaster wrote:

This is interesting, I was told previously by a friend that a large insurance firm were of the opionion that bike thieves were using unfiltered Strava data, raw data before the privacy zone setting is applied,  to locate their targets.  Since then I've started and stopped my Garmin away from the home so the raw data doesn't have the same start and end of ride location.  Could just be a conspiracy theory of course.

That's a bit sophisticated isn't it ? If they could do that they'd have much richer pickings online with no need for crowbars.

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Canyon48 replied to fenix | 6 years ago
1 like

fenix wrote:
usedtobefaster wrote:

This is interesting, I was told previously by a friend that a large insurance firm were of the opionion that bike thieves were using unfiltered Strava data, raw data before the privacy zone setting is applied,  to locate their targets.  Since then I've started and stopped my Garmin away from the home so the raw data doesn't have the same start and end of ride location.  Could just be a conspiracy theory of course.

That's a bit sophisticated isn't it ? If they could do that they'd have much richer pickings online with no need for crowbars.

I reckon I'd make a fantastic bike thief. The amount of bikes I see around my village left unlocked (but on display) in gardens and garages... Not to mention the bikes that are secured with a lock I could get through with safety scissors.

There certainly seems to be a number of tracks that start near my house on my road, but I don't know if they are mine or not (though usually I start recording some distance from my house, once on the main road). Also found out that a few people who live near me are keen cyclists and must have no privacy zone at all - their house is glowing!

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usedtobefaster replied to fenix | 6 years ago
1 like

fenix wrote:
usedtobefaster wrote:

This is interesting, I was told previously by a friend that a large insurance firm were of the opionion that bike thieves were using unfiltered Strava data, raw data before the privacy zone setting is applied,  to locate their targets.  Since then I've started and stopped my Garmin away from the home so the raw data doesn't have the same start and end of ride location.  Could just be a conspiracy theory of course.

That's a bit sophisticated isn't it ? If they could do that they'd have much richer pickings online with no need for crowbars.

Agree but it does make one question the functionality of the Strava privacy zone whether it's deleting the start and end points from the data on their servers or just filtering out, and this article on the heat map findings suggest it's just being filtered and filters can be bypassed if you know what you're doing.    Surely it's more secure to delete the true start and end points from the raw data uploaded by the user and replace with points at the 500m or 1km radius on the route.

 

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dave atkinson replied to usedtobefaster | 6 years ago
4 likes

usedtobefaster wrote:

fenix wrote:
usedtobefaster wrote:

This is interesting, I was told previously by a friend that a large insurance firm were of the opionion that bike thieves were using unfiltered Strava data, raw data before the privacy zone setting is applied,  to locate their targets.  Since then I've started and stopped my Garmin away from the home so the raw data doesn't have the same start and end of ride location.  Could just be a conspiracy theory of course.

That's a bit sophisticated isn't it ? If they could do that they'd have much richer pickings online with no need for crowbars.

Agree but it does make one question the functionality of the Strava privacy zone whether it's deleting the start and end points from the data on their servers or just filtering out, and this article on the heat map findings suggest it's just being filtered and filters can be bypassed if you know what you're doing.    Surely it's more secure to delete the true start and end points from the raw data uploaded by the user and replace with points at the 500m or 1km radius on the route.

It is just being filtered, because if you look at your own rides you can see where you start and finish even if it's within your privacy zones

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rpjwhite | 6 years ago
1 like

Yeah I checked mine. Pretty sure I am the only one going off my drive. So I agree they aren’t respecting the privacy areas. 

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patto583 | 6 years ago
1 like

Do people come up to the door to pick you up for a ride? It won't mask their route at that point, just a suggestion.

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