The Strava app shares your information but wasn’t brought to anyone’s attention until Andrew Seward’s morning run one day.
Andrew Seward, the head of Data and Product Development at Experian, went on his morning run passing a woman. She was also using the Strava app and her face later popped up on his app! They didn’t know each other and weren’t following each other in the Strava app.
Clicking on her face brought up her profile and the route she ran, which essentially pointed the way right to her front door.
Seward sent out a tweet about the Strava app sparking a firestorm of controversy about its feature.
Strava’s app share feature is not a bug. Their feature is “Flyby,” which does what the app did in this instance. Unfortunately, Flyby’s default settings are “everyone can see you” for all users.
While Strava app share controls allow users to filter who can see them, it’s not apparent that the feature settings automatically include “everyone.” Unless you happen to check, you may not even be aware that your information is broadcasting to every other Strava app user you run or bike past.
There’s an easy way to check the app to see who can see you. Here’s how:
- Just log in and go to settings.
- From there, tap “Privacy Controls.“
- Scroll down until you see the “Flyby” section and set it to your liking or, to turn it off, select “No One.”
- Tap Ok to save your changes.
That’s all there is to it, and it will give you tremendous peace of mind!
