By Brett Harrison and Shaun Moore, Defense Opinion Writers.
Americans serving abroad often carry devices that can share precise location data across multiple commercial apps, services and data-broker systems, frequently in ways users do not fully understand. They may not know it. Our adversaries do.
This is not hypothetical.
In 2018, Strava, a popular GPS-based fitness app, drew a map of one of America’s most sensitive military installations. Soldiers had simply gone for a run. When the app published an aggregated “heat map” of user activity, the GPS trails of service members illuminated base layouts and operational routines for anyone with an internet connection, not through espionage, but through data.
That vulnerability has multiplied since then. In March 2026, reporting indicated that a French naval officer’s public fitness-tracking activity exposed the location of the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle.
During recent tensions involving Iran, viral warnings circulated online claiming that location-enabled mobile applications could expose U.S. personnel movements, underscoring how credible and persistent this concern has become, even though military officials later said that specific message was false.
U.S. policymakers increasingly recognize that foreign adversaries, including China, can exploit commercially available sensitive data about Americans, including military personnel. These incidents reflect a simple but consequential truth: location data, when aggregated, leaked, or otherwise compromised, can reveal patterns of life, operational routines and sensitive infrastructure.
New approaches to navigation
A new class of vehicle-based positioning technology can maintain navigation for core positioning without relying on commercial location services, cellular connectivity or Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) signals, the satellite location systems behind GPS and other navigation tools worldwide.
In architectures designed this way, positioning can continue even when conventional device-level location services are disabled. Users can disable device location services entirely without degrading core positioning performance.
This isn’t theoretical. Specific signal-independent vehicle-positioning systems, including systems tested by the U.S. Department of Transportation and the U.S. Army, have demonstrated navigation without relying on GNSS for core positioning.
The best of these were engineered from the ground up with operational security as a foundational requirement, not retrofitted as an afterthought. Navigation continues to function even when the surrounding digital environment cannot be trusted.
The strategic stakes extend beyond individual missions. As supply chains, software dependencies and digital infrastructure become more globally distributed, the value of a trusted, allied, multi-source navigation capability has become critical to the success of missions. Continued dependence on commercial systems that were never designed to protect users from hostile governments is not a neutral choice. It is a risk the country is actively absorbing.
Policy response is overdue
The Department of Transportation has already taken important steps to advance resilient positioning capabilities. The next phase is translating that progress into procurement standards that ensure these capabilities are deployed at scale across the country.
Congress can accelerate this progress by establishing a clear requirement: any vehicle system transporting federal personnel in high-risk environments must maintain continuous, reliable positioning without dependence on commercial location services or GNSS signals. The capability exists, and government-led testing has demonstrated its viability. The opportunity now is to operationalize it.
We have a stake in this market. We acknowledge that directly. The point is not that the government should buy any one company’s product; it is that the government should demand this capability from whomever provides it. To our knowledge, there is still no government-wide federal fleet procurement requirement that vehicle navigation systems operate independently of commercial location services or GNSS.
The soldiers who went for a run in 2018 had no idea they were drawing a map for our adversaries. Today’s personnel should not have to compromise between operational security and maintaining reliable navigation. With the right investment and the right framework, they won’t have to. The technology is ready.
Brett Harrison and Shaun Moore are co-founders of TERN, an Austin-based navigation technology company.
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