Can Strava Be Used as Evidence?
Now that a huge population uses all forms of social media it poses the question for one type in particular; Can Strava be used as evidence? We’ve seen posts on Facebook used in criminal and civil cases as evidence so it is worth asking if Strava can be used as evidence!
I can assure you it can be used as evidence and has been used by Delta 74 clients in court!
What is Strava?
In the UK and most of the world, most of the population will know exactly what Strava is and what it is used for, however, it is definitely worth explaining as there may be one or two readers who will not know.
Strava is a social media app used for fitness tracking and sharing your workouts with your followers. Think Instagram but instead of photos you post your running route or your cycling route which is mapped out by GPS and shows the route as an orange line. You can add photos you took during your exercise as well.
At the time of writing the app has had over 100 million downloads across 190 countries so it is safe to say it is used by a lot of people (including me).
As an Alibi
Using Strava as evidence isn’t just for us private investigators. It can protect you too. Give in the case you have been accused of a crime which you did not commit you can use Strava to assist your defence that you were not involved.
Now, just as using Strava to assist with other investigations if you use Strava as your alibi please note that, Strava data alone will not be enough and you will need other corroborating evidence to support your Strava data to have your alibi hold up in court.
Strava used as Evidence
In the United States a cyclist who defaced a political sign on someone’s property was located and charged after the home owner located them via Strava. The homeowner along with their own footage of the incident was able to track them down to their home using the Strava app and then pass all the evidence across to the police to enable criminal proceedings.
To read more about the story you can check it out here – https://cyclinguptodate.com/other/strava-used-to-solve-crime-in-united-states
To see the video of the cyclist (in his cycling lycras!) check it out here on Twitter – https://x.com/johnmkane1776/status/1692549167929835680
Delta 74’s use of Strava as Evidence
Back in 2021 we were employed by a private client to assist with a co-habitation case.
Our client, whose husband had run off with another woman, which was the catalyst for divorce proceedings hired us to track down where her husband was actually living rather than the address he provided.
Our investigation was to assist our client in the divorce proceedings by showing the courts that her husband was co-habiting with his new partner and thus help our client gain a financial advantage in the divorce settlement.
Alongside our own evidence gathering where we used covert cameras to monitor the comings and goings of the husband’s new girlfriend’s home where he was living 99% of the time, we corroborated that with his Strava data, where he was conveniently sharing his running workouts to his public profile for all to see who had his username.
His running route would start right outside his new girlfriend’s house and then finish there after a few miles! We built our report over a few weeks and our cameras captured him coming out of the property and using his phone prior to running off. This time stamped video was then put alongside his Strava data and the times matched perfectly to corroborate the two.
We also used Strava Multiple Ride Mapper to collate all of his running workouts into one map to show how often he used the house as his place of living.
Now, at the time of writing in 2024, Strava have taken measures to hide the first part of the running/cycling route, however, evidence corroborated like this (video evidence with a time match to Strava data) will still stand up in court just like it did for our client.
To Round Up
Evidence comes in many, many forms now and social media evidence is being used all in aspects of investigations to help alongside other physical evidence.
If this blog post tickled your appetite into the use of Strava, head over to Reddit where more stories of cheaters being caught through Strava have been shared;
As always thanks for reading, Dan
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