Pokémon Go player scans possibly used to train military drones

Pokémon Go was one of those rare mobile games that seemingly had everybody talking about it — even if you never played yourself, you likely either know someone who did, or have spotted its players running around with their phones in public, wondering that the heck they were up to. The game helped introduce a lot of players to the concept of augmented reality, and encouraged them to scan their surroundings as part of its gameplay. But now, years after its heyday, a new report is re-raising concerns about how the app uses player data, and the very real-world impact it could have.

We’ve known for years that Pokémon Go empowered creator Niantic to gather massive amounts of data, and that it’s been using this information to develop its Visual Positioning System (VPS). While GPS uses timing data from satellites to determine your position, a VPS tries to figure out its location using only what it can see from your device’s camera. And now, an article from Dutch publication Trouw is attempting to highlight the uncomfortable relationship between Niantic and contractors developing guidance systems for military drones.

Niantic Spatial, the spin-off Niantic launched last year to foster development of its VPS tech, has a collaboration with Vantor, a software firm with a focus on geospatial intelligence. That includes systems meant to help drones and other military robots navigate their surroundings.

There’s no one silver bullet here — nothing directly linking Vantor’s work on VPS solutions to training data originally sourced from Pokémon Go players — but Trouw’s report paints a picture that strongly implies a possible trickle-down effect, with player scans helping to inform the development of at least early Niantic Spatial models, and those further helping to fuel advanced Vantor systems.

Especially with more and more reports of governments developing the capability to disrupt GPS positioning at a continent-wide scale, camera-based VPS systems are only likely to become increasingly important to drone warfare. If that’s not something you particularly feel like helping out with, you might want to read all the fine print of an app’s privacy policy before you help it gather data in exchange for a few in-game rewards.