Le Monde traced the 262-meter warship using satellite imagery guided by fitness app data

A French Navy officer using a smartwatch and a fitness app to track his running activity has exposed the location of the Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier, according to Le Monde.

President Emmanuel Macron deployed France's only aircraft carrier toward Cyprus in response to the US-Israeli war against Iran, in which Tehran has targeted Western military assets in retaliatory strikes.

Le Monde reported on Friday that it was able to identify the approximate real-time position of the 262-meter warship through publicly available data from the Strava platform. By analyzing geolocation data from the young sailor's public profile, the newspaper matched it with a satellite image from the European Space Agency showing the Charles de Gaulle and its accompanying strike group around 100 km off the coast of Trkiye.

The jogging route recorded on March 13 appeared as a zigzag pattern, suggesting the individual was running laps on the deck of a moving vessel, although the specific ship was not directly identified, the report said.

Security concerns regarding fitness apps and military personnel have been raised for years, particularly during overseas deployments. Strava, a San Francisco-based service launched in 2009, updated its privacy controls after a 2018 report found that its 'Global Heatmap' visualization feature unintentionally mapped multiple Western military installations.

The French Armed Forces General Staff described the latest case as a breach of operational security rules, Le Monde reported, adding that it identified several service members who shared location data or images from naval missions online.

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While France has not joined the US-Israeli bombing campaign against Iran or committed its naval forces to escort missions in the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran has effectively blocked, it has still been impacted by the hostilities.

Drone attacks by Iranian-allied forces have been reported against at least two French military facilities in the Middle East, including in Iraq where one French soldier was killed and six others were injured.