The location of the French military aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle, which had been located off the Limassol coast earlier this week, was leaked via the GPS tracker of a young officer’s Strava sports app, French newspaper Le Monde reported on Friday.

“As the French naval task force moves closer to Iran, Le Monde has identified a French serviceman using the sports app in the middle of the Mediterranean. This security flaw has not been fixed despite our previous reports,” the newspaper said.

Le Monde, in an effort to track the vessel’s location, said that one of the navy officers aboard had used the app to record his run in real time.

By using the application when going for a run circling the vessel’s deck on the morning of March 13, he gave away the – supposedly classified – location of the ship and its escort vessel, located north-west of Cyprus, around 100km from the Turkish coast.

According to the newspaper, he recorded his 7km route, which took a little over half an hour, with his smartwatch.

From there, the data was uploaded to his Strava profile online, making the data, and the location of the vessel, accessible for everyone on the internet almost in real time.

As of Friday morning, the location of the vessel could not be accessed via the common tracking sites.

Indications of the de Gaulle’s location had been made public earlier this week by data published on the open-source intelligence website Itamilradar.

According to the available data, French reconnaissance drones were spotted on radars flying south of Cyprus, indicating the ship’s position was south of Limassol.

The news of the ship’s location followed the French foreign ministry denying reports that it was planning to deploy the Charles de Gaulle to the Red Sea and potentially to the Strait of Hormuz, a key point for the international oil trade amid the deepening conflict in the Middle East.

“Let’s be clear. There is no change in posture, and the French aircraft carrier strike group remains deployed in the eastern Mediterranean,” the ministry said.

It described France’s mission in the region as both “defensive” and “protective”, with French President Macron having visited the vessel last week after a joint visit to Cyprus with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, saying that the Charles de Gaulle was “now close to Cyprus to contribute to the overall defence picture, and to ensure it in the long term”.

The French navy’s presence in the Middle East consists of at least three frigates and a supply ship in addition to the aircraft carrier. Other vessels in the area include Italy’s Federico Martinego frigate, Spain’s Cristobal Colon frigate, and the Netherlands’ HNLMS Evertsen.