A more private Strava

A more private Strava

Multiple privacy addresses combine to make a larger privacy area.
Multiple privacy addresses combine to make a larger privacy area.

Strava allows users to set a privacy zone which will hide your exact start or finish location with a 1km circle of privacy. I don’t feel as though this is enough, so I discovered an easy way which allows you to expand the hidden area around your home or office.

You set these privacy zones under account settings, which is accessed by clicking your profile photo in the upper right of the web page and selecting “Settings” from the menu. You can then get to the privacy settings by clicking the Privacy menu item on the left side of your account settings page.

To accomplish this, all you need to do is enter multiple addresses which are located close to each other. These then combine to create a larger area of privacy which hides your exact start or finish location. I have entered a larger area of privacy at my house and also at my workplace.

Two key tips:

  1. I’ve found that entering an address every other block seems to work well. Having a larger gap sometimes breaks the “cone of privacy”
  2. Entering addresses also seems to work better than cross streets. As you can see from the example to the right, cross streets can work. But in general, a specific house number and street seems to work best.

 

4 Responses to “A more private Strava”

  1. mtnrunner2

    Nice. The Strava version of carpet bombing. ++

    Reply
  2. djconnel

    Nice work! But for those who want their privacy regions smaller rather than larger, support from the top is going to be needed, still.

    Reply
  3. Hugo van der Merwe

    When I tested this, some time ago, it looked like only one of the circles actually gets chosen and applied to a GPS track. The way privacy zones are displayed has since changed, so it’s no longer as easy to see what is actually visible to other people. It’s possible they’ve now made multiple privacy circles actually have the effect you expect, but until this has specifically been tested/demonstrated, I wouldn’t trust it.

    Reply
    • Hugo van der Merwe

      Take a look at your runs with e.g. an Incognito window to see if you’re really getting what you expect?

      (It seems most of your runs that seem to be from home, start and end at one specific Avenue.)

      Actually, … I’ll contact you about this on Strava.

      Reply

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