Strava is closing the gates on sharing fitness data with other apps

We wanted to provide more context about the changes to our API Agreement and the impact on our users and developers. We currently expect these changes to impact less than .1% of applications and we notified most of those affected last week.

Enhanced Privacy and User Control

Privacy and user control are at the forefront of our environment. As a result, we are committed to evolving our API processes as regulatory requirements and user expectations change. This includes the decision to limit the ability of user data to be displayed by third-party applications in ways that the user may not expect. Specifically, we want to thoughtfully deal with situations where users connect to a third-party application and do not know that their data is not only exposed to use for visibility, but also to other users (for example, in a public server or a heat map. ). Recent API changes address this situation and provide a consistent framework for Strava user data.

Training AI Models

We believe in the power of AI to transform the athlete experience–whether it’s delivering personalized information to help you reach your goals, generating route or training recommendations, or countless other things. But innovation in this space must be handled responsibly and with a strong focus on user control. As part of our productive AI capabilities, we are committed to implementing thoughtful solutions that prioritize user control and productivity.

Third-party developers may not take such a deliberate approach to training AI models and therefore, we believe that the best decision for the platform and users is to prevent the use of data extracted from Strava users in this way. Our previous policies simply prohibited the use of Strava user data for training and model development but we have made this clear due to increased activity in this space.

No Impact on Multiple Developers

We recognize that our platform thrives because of the creativity and dedication of third-party developers who build tools that complement and extend Strava’s capabilities. We are committed to promoting this ecosystem. We expect that these changes will affect only a small portion (less than .1%) of the applications on the Strava platform–the vast majority of existing use cases are still allowed, including training platforms that focus on providing feedback to users and assistive tools. users understand their data and performance.