Address Privacy Function: Allow to hide Addresses Anywhere on Ride

[SamB]

Currently the address privacy function works for the beginning and end of rides. Why not have it work for anywhere on a ride? I visit my Mom by bicycle and the ride goes up on Strava. I have added her address to the list of hidden addresses, but Strava does not hide the address because it is not the beginning or end of a ride. I could stop the ride when I arrive at my Mom's and then start a new ride when I leave, but I prefer to simply stop the timer, put my device to sleep, then start it up again when I ride home ... this way all my riding for a day is in one ride instead of multiple rides.

[Soren]

Thanks for submitting your idea on implementing ways to conceal a sensitive location in the middle of an activity. I'd like to point out that if one were able to add a hidden address at any point in the activity, it would effectively disclose the location on the map by highlighting the radius by means of a gap in the activity line itself. I'm certain we could brainstorm more efficient ways to tackle this issue, therefore I'm approving your idea and it's open to voting and further discussion.
We also recommend that in order to prevent sensitive locations from appearing on your activity map when it's not at the beginning or end of an activity, make sure you pause/resume your activity recording outside of the surrounding area or hide the map entirely.

For more information on all of our privacy controls, please visit our privacy center and take the time to ensure your selections in Strava represent your intended experience.

[SamB]

Hi Soren, 

Thanks for your response.  There would be a gap in the activity line, but the activity is not necessarily in a straight line. So if the activity is hidden for (example) between 0.3 and 1.6 km riding distance from the sensitive location, then somebody viewing the map would still have a large area to "guess" as to the sensitive location. As I understand it, this is already done for sensitive locations at the beginning or end of a ride. So why not just extend the same logic to a point on the ride?

[AM88]

I would like to see an option to hide everything within a certain range of an address.  Currently, the privacy settings only allows you to hide the start and end near the specified address.  I often loop back to my house to restock water and fuel for my 20 to 30 mile runs.  This renders the privacy feature useless to me.  I have to hide all or nothing.  Surely I'm not the only one using my house an "aid station".

[Daluke]

Any 'fix' for the issue you presented regarding hiding a location's visibility, one thats not at a start or end point? I experienced a very similar issue, my home location. Forgot to pause the ride a ways away and resume it at that paused location when continuing the ride. Had to hide the entire map. Bummer!

[Silentvoyager]

Pausing and resuming an activity is not always a good solution because that has a side effect - of there is at least one pause in an activity that disables Strava's moving time detection. For that reason I strongly prefer to run my activities end to end without pauses.

Also, people may not even be aware that privacy zones only work in a beginning or an end of an activity. I was certain privacy zone would work everywhere because that seemed like the most logical solution. I was quite surprised when I realized that wasn't the case. 

[OlafZ]

More than 18 months ago and the problem is not solved. 🤔

This is no service from Strava. 👎👎👎

[imw]

I have a expereinced a simlar issue. Returned to my address which is in my privacy zone during an activity and the part of the activity that is in my privacy zone has not been hidden because it was not at the start/end of my activity. 

Similarly I paused my activity because it was part of the one activity, I wasn't doing two activities - stopped at home for a short period (no different to an event transition). In fact, if I was doing a duathalon training session and performed my transition at home, my address would not be hidden. Unsafe!

[Pavol]

It is possible to hide start and end of activity in specified places and it works, but what if I go out, in the middle I visit hidden address and then continue in activity. In such cases my home address or other places I would like to hide are revealed despite being in the "hidden area". Ideally the path should be hidden anytime it enters hidden area until it exits it.

[Jane]

Hello. We wanted to let you know that your idea submission from December of 2022 will be archived. While this idea is interesting, we don’t have any immediate plans to implement this and currently aren’t able to prioritize this idea.

Please note that your feedback is valuable to Strava. As stated in our Community Idea Guidelines, we receive many idea submissions each week, and realistically, there may be various reasons that prevent us from including an idea on our Product Roadmap.  

We want to thank you for taking the time to submit your idea and we look forward to your continued contributions to the Strava Community.  

[imw]

@Jane so you're telling us that Strava doesn't take its user's privacy seriously?

That's disappointing!

[OlafZ]

@Jane so you're telling us that Strava doesn't take its user's privacy seriously?

That's disappointing! 👎

[SamB]

I agree with imw and OlafZ.  It is unfortunate that Strava does not prioritize privacy.  Jane characterizes the idea as "interesting", but wouldn't "obvious" be a better descriptor?  If the goal is to offer users the option to specify addresses as "hidden", then it seems obvious to me that an address within any point in a ride would hidden, rather than just an address at a start or end of a ride.  

[guillaumed]

@Jane I don't see this as a suggestion, rather as a defect for the user privacy. Privacy should be a top priority and not just another idea in the suggestion box that can get archived so simply. Thanks for helping us put it back in visibility please 🙂

@SamB @OlafZ @imw 

[Jan_Mantau]

I see that as an additional feature that would be useful for a number of circumstances. I for my part wouldn't activate it because then I would lose the opportunity to appear on segments in my privacy zone.

[Silentvoyager]

It is disappointing that this has been archived. It is pretty clear that many (most?) users don't know how the privacy zones actually work. Just today there have been another post about this on reddit here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Strava/comments/1dept4r/if_you_stop_by_your_home_during_an_activity_it/

There will be cases when users will inadvertently expose where they live despite having privacy zones! I have done that.