Many applications use the geolocation of their users to improve the service they offer.
But these locations can also be used by malicious people.
Burglary, assaults… there is no shortage of risks, noted TF1's 8 p.m.
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It's an application that Sylvie couldn't do without. Twice a week, this Parisian goes to a park with a friend for an hour of running. And each time, she uses the sports social network Strava to record her journey and monitor her performances. “I am connected by a watch and also by an application connected to my phone, which is with me all the time”she explains in the TF1 report at the top of this article. “This connection for running allows me to see a little bit of performance, to see a little bit where I am”she still highlights.
When you geolocate someone, you can know everything about them
Vanessa Bouchara, lawyer
But for this application as for many others, geolocations can be public and accessible to everyone, depending on the selected parameters. An investigation of Monde thus managed to follow the bodyguards of the French president, Emmanuel Macron, via Strava. A security flaw which had already been highlighted in 2018, when the use of this application by soldiers made it possible to locate French military bases in Mali, and American positions in Iraq.
Without going into war zones, keeping your geolocation active is also the best way to help potential burglars take action, as they can identify whether a person is at home or not. And Strava is not the only application in question. Others allowing you to rent scooters, self-service cars or order VTCs can also be used by observers who are not always well-intentioned.
“When we geolocate someone, we can know everything about them. We can know their religion, their possible health problems. We can even know their job. Geolocation goes a little further than traditional personal data This is, in my opinion, data that should be considered sensitive data.underlines lawyer Vanessa Bouchara. A specialist in intellectual property and digital technology, she alerts within her office about burglaries, assaults or even the settlement of reports possible thanks to this process.
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Dating site applications are also blamed. If in theory, it is impossible to precisely geolocate a person, Karel Dhondt, a student researcher in Belgium managed to prove that half a dozen dating applications, among the best known in the world, were not quite secure. Because of this flaw, it could find a user's exact location within minutes. Following his alert, the applications were informed and the flaws resolved. However, “this is worrying because it shows the porosity between the virtual world and the real world. And that represents a threat”estime Karel Dhondt.
How to protect yourself?
To prevent your data from being used, several precautions can be taken. On some apps, it is possible to deactivate the display of the distance and the privacy zone. On other platforms, you can prohibit precise geolocation within a radius of 200 meters, or even 1000 meters.
Other applications use geolocation while being careful to avoid misuse. This is the case, for example, of the Umay application, developed to combat street harassment. “We built our entire application taking care to ensure that we do not store the geolocation of our users. So that it is not stolen, so that there are no people with bad intentions who can potentially come and recover this data, potentially attack users of the application”says co-founder Pauline Vanderquand. Proof that the Internet giants could manage this data much better.
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