Strava Bans User for Running in North Korea

On the list of quirky things, I didn’t have “Strava bans user for running in North Korea” on my bingo card today. But here we are. I’ve just spent the last hour going down the rabbit hole that is the Pyongyang Marathon (in North Korea), and it turns out – it’s a thing. As in, as thing that outsiders come and run. There’s even an official website for it. In fact, there’s been 31 editions of it. And over 1,000 foreigners run in it and the affiliated running events each year, including plenty of diplomats such as the British Ambassador to North Korea.

The event has been happening for decades, but that’s actually not what got this person their account banned. Rather, they were there for a trip because they are working on their doctorate about North Korea, while there, went on a run, then came home (to a different country). After which, they upload run to Garmin Connect, which then synced it to Strava. Finally, Strava then sent them a note that their account was being terminated.

But wait, it gets better!

Last month, a person did a treadmill run where their virtual run location was set as North Korea. Guess what? Their account too was banned. Albeit, after contacting support, the company eventually re-instated it – but clearly Strava has some pretty funky rules in place around uploading activities related to North Korea. What’s strange here though is that it’s not simply hiding the workout, but straight-up deleting the account. Which obviously, makes no sense – so, I did what I do best: Dig into it.

!!!Now, before we go to far, let’s just take two seconds to do a quick explainer on North Korea travel. In a nutshell, there are tour operators that operate trips to North Korea. Depending on your citizenship, it is actually not illegal for people to go to North Korea within one of those tour operator trips. These trips are *highly* controlled, and generally speaking give outsiders a positive impression of North Korea, generally only featuring the lives of elite families. They would rightly be called propaganda. Equally though, they are one of the few windows into society in North Korea, polished and skewed as it might be. Perhaps the best balance of a video I’ve seen recently was this one published just 10 days ago, with over 5 million views. Again, I’m definitely not here to endorse you (or me) going to North Korea!!!

Instead, I’m here to illuminate an absolutely bonkers automated system that Strava has, backed by an even more unexplainable policy.

How Strava Handles Activities in North Korea:

That now-Strava-deleted-user lives outside North Korea, and is studying North Korea for her doctorate. In addition, she also has a YouTube channel (and other social media bits), that are a blend of ultra running + insights into North Korea from an outsiders perspective. Again, I’m definitely not here to advocate going to North Korea. Nor am I here to judge her and her study of North Korea. After all, the study of all countries and cultures is important to understanding them. Instead, I’m here to ‘free the GPS track’. It’s like the ‘free the nipple’, only less exciting.

While on one of these aforementioned tourist trips, she went on a run, and recorded that with their GPS watch (specifically, a Garmin Forerunner 265 by the looks of it). Note that while technically North Korea has historically prohibited standalone GPS devices, it appears that these days they turn a blind eye to watches, given most smartwatches have GPS in them today. Same goes for phones (which are permitted for tourism trips).

Of course, there’s no publicly accessible internet in North Korea, thus the person waited till they got home to upload the workout. After uploading the workout, they received a notice that their account had been terminated, for violating Strava’s Terms and Conditions. Here’s a screenshot of that Instagram story:

Strava’s response seemed like a pretty harsh reaction, but then I did a bit more digging. Just over a month ago, a user on Reddit reported doing a treadmill run. Their iFit-equipped treadmill enabled them to do runs pretty much anywhere Google Maps has mapping information, which does indeed include North Korea. It can essentially recreate a route anywhere. And they did just that, after which it uploaded to Strava. Following which, Strava banned the user.

Now, following the ban, the user reached out to Strava Support, and was able to get the account un-terminated, after they determined the user didn’t actually go to North Korea.

Figuring Out The Rules:

But still, none of this was holding water, logical or otherwise. Why on earth was Strava banning users for uploading random runs in North Korea. After all, the company is more than happy to publish data from military officers and other government officials on top-secret plans. Certainly, North Korea would be the opposite of top secret. (Nitpickers Corner: I’m fully aware that in these cases, Strava is actually not at fault here, but rather individuals not understanding that posting data to a social media site is…umm…social.)

In any case, regarding the North Korea case, I asked Strava what was up.

And here’s what they had to say:

“Thanks for the chance to provide clarity on this.

In accordance with mandatory US sanctions and export controls, which prohibit the offering of online services to North Korea, Strava does not allow users to post activities occurring there. This is also directly stated in our Terms of Service (“[users] may not use or export the Content in violation of U.S. export laws and regulations”). When a user uploads activity with GPS data indicating North Korea, the activity is hidden, the account is automatically suspended, and the user is notified. If the user believes the block was made in error—e.g., as a result of faulty GPS data—they are able to reach out to our team and, if confirmed, have their account restored.”

Hmm.

After their initial response, I volleyed back that this didn’t really make much sense. The user in question wasn’t accessing Strava from North Korea (thus, Strava isn’t providing services to North Korea). Further, the user created the run in North Korea on Garmin hardware, not Strava hardware. And then uploaded it to Strava once they left the country. Again, Strava isn’t available in North Korea, so this isn’t an issue. Said differently, nobody is violating US export controls here, since the company (Strava) isn’t providing a service to North Korea.

In fact, countless people upload videos to YouTube that were shot in North Korea on all manner of devices/phones. Just as numerous mainstream media entities have done so for decades. These tourism trips are hardly new. Again, propaganda-driven, but hardly new. The Pyongyang Marathon has been going on for years. Likewise, you can upload a photo taken within North Korea to Facebook, or Instagram, or any other platform you choose. Further, Garmin does not have any sort of ban or prohibition on a user going for a run with a Garmin watch anywhere on this planet. That’s your device, to do as you wish, and uploading it to Garmin Connect won’t get you banned either.

If there was a real basis for legal concern, there wouldn’t be thousands upon thousands of videos uploaded to YouTube that were shot in North Korea. I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that Google has better lawyers than Strava. Likewise, Facebook and Apple. Because Apple doesn’t terminate your iCloud account because it contains your iPhone photos taken in North Korea (yes, I checked that too).

In any event, after I volleyed back to Strava again, asking why the company seems to be taking a much more restrictive stance than any other company on this planet that I can find, they said:

“We can’t speak for other companies and how they approach compliance with export controls. Strava’s controls are based on feedback from the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, and we take a broad, zero-tolerance approach.”

Again, per above, that doesn’t really explain why Strava seems to be (seemingly incorrectly) interpreting how this law works. But nonetheless, since that’s the way Strava is handling it, I asked if there was a list of other countries that fall into this camp (so users could be aware), which they responded with:

“As noted previously, Strava’s approach is based on feedback from OFAC.”

So, no?

Ok, let’s go on a field trip them to the Treasure department’s website and see if we can find the list from OFAC. I’ll save you a crap-ton of bumbling around. The main page you need is this one. Or, maybe this one. This first lists *MASSIVE* PDF files full of every possible sanction type. There are dozens of countries on the list. But the level of sanctions varies by country. For example, China is on the list, but it does not prohibit regular business transactions. As are plenty of countries in Africa and the Middle East, again, which don’t prohibit most business transactions. The best I could easily discern was a list from Oregon State University, that seems to indicate it’s: Cuba, Iran, North Korea, and Syria.

Figuring out exactly which list Strava is using to decide would be very helpful. But alas, I already asked that. Which begs the question: Why can’t they provide it, and state it simply, on some support site? Further, why on earth would a user be banned, as opposed to having their activity hidden. If Strava’s goal is to hide that data source, simply hiding the activity would solve that.

In fact, years ago, Strava did actually show data from North Korea. There’s an old Reddit thread on it. And there was even a Segment at one point. None seem to exist today.

In any event, that completes my rabbit hole for the day. You’re welcome.

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