Strikingly enough, three -quarters of the soldiers did not protect his profile. All activities of those soldiers are visible, even when they exercise abroad. For example, the researchers found two soldiers who run in the summer of 2024 at an air force base in Romania. On that basis, Dutch soldiers with Reaper Drones are responsible for monitoring the NATO east flank.
One of the two soldiers is now back at Volkel Air Base. The other is on a new mission. On March 10 he walked around the ämari Air Base in Latvia. On that basis are Dutch F35s that guard NATO airspace.
It is not the first time that the use of sports apps among soldiers has caused a fuss. Earlier, The Guardian revealed that the locations of secret bases could be found via the Strava app. Bellingcat and De Correspondent managed to find out the names of soldiers via the Polar app in 2018. After those revelations, the Ministry of Defense has tightened the guidelines for soldiers. Given the discovery of Omroep Gelderland, the question is whether this has had any effect.
Expert Matthijs Koot therefore wonders when they will learn something from this. According to him, there is only one way to prevent this type of information leaking. “Soldiers should stop placing their activities in the fields of Defense on social media.” And if they really want that? “Then create an account under a different name.”
“It is unbelievable that these tracking apps are not explicitly prohibited on military bases.” says Jimme Nordkamp, who is in the Lower House for GroenLinks-PvdA. “We have to take the safety of our own people and military activities more seriously, certainly in these times of international tensions.” Nordkamp will ask Minister Brekelmans of Defense what options he has to curb this.
In a response, the Ministry of Defense stated that the advice is to lock their profile, not to use certain apps at defense locations and not recognizable as a military on such platforms. The reporting from Omroep Gelderland is a reason for the Ministry of Defense to extra point out the risks of sharing private information. The Ministry of Defense says it is not able to make statements about any additional security measures that are taken.
Brigade officer Nico Boom of the 43 mechanized brigade adds to this at the Johannes Postkazerne in Havelte that there is a danger to national security, but that he has no insight into what soldiers put on their private telephone. “Such an app cannot be installed on the Defense devices, what people put on their device privately, I have no grip on that, but we do say that it is unwise and can be unsafe to use such an app. All we can do is point to the dangers and if we go on a mission or for a long time on exercise, then the use of own phones is forbidden.”
Boom is shocked by this: “It is not a war, but peace is not entirely and cyber protection is an important theme, not only for defense, but for the entire society.”
* Miranda Berends is not her real name