PSA: Runkeeper is tracking your every move, transfers user data to a third-party advertiser

As a fitness-tracking app, Runkeeper's main purpose is to track its users in an attempt to provide them with detailed stats regarding their run, walk, or other fitness activities. However, while the app is supposed to turn off its tracking mechanisms when the training or activity is over, it turns out that this is not the case.

As recently discovered by the Norwegian Consumer Council, Runkeeper is tracking the location of its users even when the app is not active. Worse still, the same agency has also discovered that this data is then transferred by FitnessKeeper, the developer behind RunKeeper, to a third party US-based advertiser named Kiip.me.

This past Friday, the Norwegian Consumer Council filed a formal complaint against FitnessKeeper for breaching the EU's data protection laws. In a statement issued to Ars Technica, Finn Myrstad, the agency's digital policy director has stated:



Unfortunately, FitnesKeeper has no European subsidiaries, being a US-based company. As such, the NCC will probably be unable to impose any serious sanctions. On the upside, now that it has been brought to public attention that Runkeeper is continuously tracking users, smartphone owners might make a conscious decision to stop using the app.