Members of the Royal Family are public figures, meaning they're recognizable to the general public. In order to protect their privacy, royals employ security teams to stay safe. Following an investigation by Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter, it's been revealed that the bodyguards tasked with protecting the Royal Family of Sweden, as well as the Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, inadvertently "exposed" their "private locations," causing a huge "security risk," per GB News.
As reported by The New York Times, the bodyguards working for the Swedish Royal Family "uploaded their workout routes to Strava, a fitness app that allows users to map and share their movements." Per the outlet, Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter "reported that it tracked more than 1,400 workouts by seven bodyguards over the last year."
Not only did the routes taken by the bodyguards reveal private addresses, they also showed where members of the Royal Family were vacationing, The New York Times reported.
An official statement from the Säkerhetspolisen (SÄPO) regarding the incident explained (via NBC News), "The Swedish Security Police take the information very seriously...This is a matter of data that could be used to gather information about the activities of our Service."
The statement continued, "Dignitaries that our Service is responsible for protecting are subject to several layers of protection, where their close protection by bodyguards is one layer...Our Service is now taking the necessary steps to ensure that our procedures are followed closely, so that this does not happen again."
Strava assured users that there was no "leak or breach of user data," and that discretion was always encouraged amongst anyone "working in sensitive professions" who might benefit from protecting their locations, per The New York Times.
