Säpo bodyguards' Strava runs 'reveal locations of Swedish PM and royals'
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The information was leaked when seven bodyguards uploaded their runs to popular training app Strava, newspaper Dagens Nyheter (DN) reports.
The bodyguards had public accounts on the app and uploaded runs that included maps of routes, the time of day they were carried out and even the pace.
This information, the newspaper reports, could in the worst case scenario be used by someone planning an attack on Kristersson to work out his location and address.
Strava information has previously been used for this type of attack elsewhere. In 2023, a Russian commander was killed whilst out on a run ‒ his last recorded workout on Strava was 'liked' by the head of Ukraine's military intelligence services.
Using the Strava info Dagens Nyheter was able to map Kristersson's location on at least 35 occasions, including discovering the location of his home in Södermanland, which is classified, and the hotel the prime minister and his wife were staying at when on a private trip to Åland.
The bodyguards' Strava runs also revealed the location of other officials, like members of the royal family, former prime ministers Magdalena Andersson and Stefan Löfven, and Sweden Democrat leader Jimmie Åkesson, the newspaper claimed.
"This is very serious," security expert Carolina Angelis, who has a background in Swedish intelligence services, told Dagens Nyheter.
"Potential threats use all open information which is available to map people and track their movement patterns. If you know that someone always runs on Djurgården on Saturdays at 3pm then it becomes much easier to plan an attack or kidnapping," she said.
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The newspaper collected data on more than 1,400 runs, in Sweden and abroad, which in some cases revealed trips by public officials which had not been made public. Some of the bodyguards recorded runs from within Säpo's headquarters in Solna, providing information on their movements within the classified building.
"The information revealed in this investigation is something we take very seriously," Carolina Björnsdotter Paasikivi, Säpo's head of security, told DN. "This is information which could be used to track Security Police activities. We're now investigating what effects this could have had."
DN contacted Säpo and alerted them to the leak, giving them three days to fix it. Afterwards, the accounts were closed or made private.
Paasikivi added that the agency "has routines for this" but that it appears that they have not been followed in some cases.
"We're undertaking measures to make sure our guidelines are followed. Other than that, I can't go into our internal work in more detail other than we are taking measures to make sure it won't happen again."
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