Pokemon Go
It’s only been a week since Pokémon Go’s UK release and already you will find people of all ages wandering the streets, shops, parks and police stations of our towns. The UK and the World has literally gone Pokémon mad…again. In fact, in the US the game beat the giants like Tinder and Twitter as the most downloaded app in its first day of availability.
But it really is all fun games until we think about the security issues around the App.
Firstly Niantic the Apps creators have a 20-page document that no teen in reality, virtual or otherwise would read, and I bet it’s the same case for the parents that have to ‘authorise’ an App for their child; an App that can access your location, your camera and your personal google account- think about it?
Security blogger Adam Reeve blogged very soon after the US release about his concerns with Niantic’s privacy policy. If you sign up with your Google account the creators ask for full access to your details, meaning they could see and modify nearly all information on your account.
Niantic have since released a statement claiming to work on fixing this so that the App will only access your User ID and email address and no other Google account information- you can read the statement here:
Our main concern however, is in Niantic’s privacy policy that describes how the company could use and share user’s information with third parties- these third parties may not abide by said privacy policy- read here in the first paragraph.
So despite Pokémon Go being a brilliant new game for people old and young throughout the world, we can’t help but be concerned with some of the safety features. Would you be happy with your child’s location potentially being shared with a ‘third party’?
On a lighter note, when researching the App we found some brilliant conspiracy theories, such as, it being part of Michelle Obama’s campaign to get kids moving more.
