Over the past two weeks, cartoon creatures have officially taken over our world. If you haven’t seen them, it’s because they’re only visible when playing the new game, “Pokémon GO”. This free smartphone game fuses virtual technology with the physical world, causing it to quickly become a cultural phenomenon and the biggest mobile game in U.S. history.

However, Pokémon GO’s rapid rise in popularity has also raised some major security concerns. While millions of users wander the world searching for Squirtles and Pikachus, they may not be aware of what they’re giving up in return for playing the game.

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What is Pokémon GO?

You’re probably familiar with the thirty-year-old Pokémon franchise, and now that childhood fantasy has become a reality – a virtual reality, that is. The obsession surrounding Pokémon has evolved into a wildly popular game that now has people lurking around parks, restaurants and even other people’s homes.

The game, made by Niantic Inc., uses your GPS and other location-finding technologies to meld the fantasy world of Pokémon into the real world. In order to find Pokémon, users are required to travel on-foot around their community to various locations, collecting items along the way. Once a wild Pokémon appears, the game uses cell phone cameras to project it into a real-world environment, allowing the user to “catch ‘em all” by throwing a pokéball at it.

This seems harmless enough, right? Well, if you take a closer look at the fine print, it actually reveals how vulnerable our personal data can be in the hands of seemingly benign applications.

Some Gastly Concerns

Lax Privacy Policy

Like most apps out there, Pokémon GO does collect data about its users. When first downloading the app, users need to sign in with a Google account and grant access for the app to use your camera, data and contacts. However, according to thePokémon GO privacy policy, Niantic may also collect your username, email address, IP address, the web pages you viewed before logging into the game, and your entire Google account. Many have stated their concerns online, noting that such full access to this information is a huge security risk.

In addition, the privacy policy also gives the company wide latitude for using all of this information. Niantic can hand personally-identifiable information (PII) over to law enforcement, sell it off, and even share it with third parties.

Niantic recently addressed this concern and came out with a statement saying that they are fixing the bug that allowed the app to gain full access to users’ accounts.


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