In 2024, journalists were able to determine exactly where the President of the United States was staying during a sensitive diplomatic trip. Not by breaching a network. Not through a drone or insider leak, but through a phone app. It wasn’t on the President’s phone or installed by his staff. So how did it happen?
They followed a jogging route logged by a Secret Service agent on a fitness app.
If the President can be pinpointed, this same exploit can be used to track your location as well. If you’re protected by a security detail, live a high-profile life, or manage people who do, your security and safety may depend on how well others manage their devices.
Apps on someone else’s phone can quietly log movements, tag GPS coordinates, and sometimes publish that data to the world automatically. This kind of mobile app risk is invisible until it’s exploited.
When you travel in a group, even the strongest precautions can be undone by someone nearby. One person can give it all away, without even meaning to.
The Overlooked Risk of Executive Protection
Investigators at Le Monde found that fitness apps used by Secret Service agents exposed locations linked to Joe Biden, Donald Trump, Kamala Harris, Jill Biden, and even French President Emmanuel Macron. One agent’s run in San Francisco revealed the perimeter and exact hotel used during Biden’s talks with President Xi Jinping of China.
These agents weren’t malicious, but the result was a breach of physical movement data that would have taken a foreign intelligence service weeks to triangulate by other means.
This wasn’t the first time fitness apps exposed sensitive locations. Modern mobile app risk is a never-ending avalanche; even by trained professionals. Back in 2018, a global heatmap released by Strava revealed jogging routes around secret U.S. military installations in places like Somalia, Yemen, and the Falkland Islands. Observers were able to identify patrol patterns, troop housing zones, and even suspected intelligence sites.
The Pentagon launched an internal review, but the core problem remains unchanged: when enough people casually log their movements, it becomes possible to track your location with precision without breaching a single system.
How Bad Actors Can Track Your Location
Here’s how these apps expose high-value targets:
- A member of the security detail uses a fitness or tracking app
- That app records GPS routes with timestamps, even if the user never posts publicly.
- Many apps default to “share” mode unless users turn it off.
- Patterns emerge: repeated runs around specific hotels, embassies, venues.
- Anyone with basic knowledge of open-source intelligence can reverse-engineer the who, when, and where.
The person being protected may never touch the app. But the risk still follows them everywhere they go.
You Don’t Need to Be a President to Be a Target
In today’s world: if you run an organization, live a high-profile life, or operate in politics, someone is watching. And competitors, activists, criminals, stalkers, and foreign adversaries will gladly take whatever your security detail gives away for free.
From TAL Global’s perspective, this is a textbook executive protection failure. It’s simple to spot and easy to fix, but because it feels like common sense, it often gets overlooked. And that’s exactly how it becomes a persistent exploit. When something is obvious, people up and down the chain, from leadership to the security detail wearing the tracker, assume someone else cleared it. That assumption keeps the door open.
Exposure comes from the everyday, not the exotic.
What To Do Now
Here’s what your team can do immediately:
- Ban fitness and location apps while on duty
No exceptions. Duty phones and wearables must be scrubbed of tracking features. - Train on proximity risk
Everyone involved in executive protection should understand how apps on their devices could expose the principal, even passively. - Audit every phone for default behaviors
Many apps begin tracking location the moment they are launched. A full phone app security review should be standard to identify and eliminate high-exposure mobile app risks. - Create a digital hygiene protocol for all protection personnel
Include regular app audits, heatmap checks, and account visibility scans. - Update briefings for family, staff, and entourage
The people closest to you may pose the biggest digital exposure—without even knowing it.
A fitness watch should never compromise a million-dollar security operation. But it has, and it will again. Technology keeps evolving. Smart protection and competent security need to evolve with it.
The Difference Between Protection and Exposure? Who You Hire.
Follow us here for more security insights, strategy, and real-world analysis of trending topics that matter to you. And when you’re ready for a security upgrade, you can always Talk To Us.
Here’s how that works:
- Schedule a Discovery Call
Tell us about your team, your exposure points, and what’s keeping you up at night. - Get Feedback from Proven Experts
We’ll assess your risk landscape; from devices and behaviors to overlooked apps and soft spots. - Receive a Custom Risk Playbook
Clear, prioritized steps tailored to your reality, not a recycled checklist.
About TAL Global
TAL Global is an international security consulting and risk management firm with over 25 years of proven experience. We protect people, places, assets, and logistics in an increasingly complex and connected world.
Our team includes former federal agents, military veterans, executive level leaders, and crisis response experts recognized for delivering results under pressure. We are trusted by Fortune 500 companies, government agencies, and mission driven organizations worldwide.
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