Project Polar

In the summer of 2018, journalists Foeke Postma, Dimitri Tokmetzis, Maurits Martijn en Riffy Bol revealed how easy it is to use a fitness app (Polar) to find the names and home addresses of intelligence agents, people who work at sites where nuclear weapons are stored, and military personnel.

Visualising traces of soldiers and secret agents to reveal risks associated with sport apps like Polar

After the research was conducted by Dimitri, Foeke, Maurits and Riffy, I visualised the results. I used GIS to map the data and placed it on top of sattelite imagery. Many military sites are blurred on online maps. Such as Kamp Holterhoek:

By visualising the data from Polar, people can be found that have access to restricted areas like these. The blue lines indicate the routes military personnel have run at this location.

This was done for many other military locations around the world.

Below, a visualisation shows that more than 200 users have been identified by researching places such as the locations shown above.

Want to learn more about this project? You can find all the articles here.