Pokemon Go Privacy Harms

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Pokémon Go: Privacy Report

Advanced Society: Innovation

Lecturers: S. Dengler & F. W. van Gils

Date of submission: (xx – 11 – 2017)

Number of characters: 18.576

Authors:

Bas Thomas (1273513)

Niek van der Schaaf (197463)

Introduction

Pokémon Go is a location-based augmented reality game for smartphones, which allows people to experience the digital game in a real world environment. The app was released in July 2016 and it is based on the popular series and movies Pokémon. The Pokémon Go app has been the most downloaded app within the first week in the Apple App Story in history and it is the fastest mobile game to earn $600 million. This amount was earned within the first 90 days of the release of the app. The release of the app increased the market value of Nintendo with $7.5 billion within the first week of its launch (Choudhury & Sile, 2016).

There are four parties involved with the development of the Pokémon Go app. The first party is the Pokémon Company, which holds the Pokémon franchise and therefore the rights of the content used in the app. The second party is Niantic Labs, which was initially a startup within Google. This is the actual developer and publisher of the app. The third party, Google, provides the map which is necessary to play. Lastly, there is Nintendo. Nintendo is the parent company of the Pokémon Company and they invested in the development of the app as well. Nintendo created the Pokémon Company in order for it to deal with the marketing and the license of the Pokémon franchise.

The developer and publisher of Pokémon Go, Niantic Labs, was founded in 2010 by John Hanke. He created the startups which later became Google Maps and Google Earth. Earlier in his career, John Hanke was head of Google’s Geo division, which included among other things Google Earth and Google Maps. During his time at Google’s Geo division, it appeared that Google vehicles illegally collected Wi-Fi data. Eventually, it came to light that this collection went on for more than two years. This scandal, which would later be referred to as the ‘’Wi-Spy’’ scandal, happened under the rule of John Hanke. Biddle (2016) argues that because of this scandal, people should be alarmed about the use and privacy implications of Pokémon Go, which is developed and published by John Hanke’s Niantic Labs.  

In this paper we will give a comprehensive description of the app Pokémon Go. We will look at how the app works and present some specifications about the app. Furthermore, we will look at how the data is being handled, we will analyze the implications of these data collections and we will categorize the way Niantic Labs uses the data within specific harmful activities according to Solove (2006). Finally, we will present a conclusion about the privacy aspects of the app Pokémon Go.

Product description

Pokémon Go is a mobile app which is available in the Apple App Store, Google Play and the Amazon Appstore for free. When you open the app the first time, you will get a notification whether or not the app is allowed to send you notifications when you are not using the app. Right after this notification, you will get another one which asks whether or not the app is allowed to track your location in order for you to play the game. When you have answered these two questions, you will see that you need to have an account with either Google or the Pokémon Trainer Club, which is an account that can be used for the website www.pokemon.com. Once you created an account with^[a] one of these two platforms, or when you have logged in with an already existing account of one of these two platforms, you will be redirected to the game. At this stage, you need to give Niantic Labs your date of birth. The reason for this is that it is not allowed to play this game for children under 13 years old, without official permission of a parent or guardian. If you are 13 years or older, you do not need this permission and are able to continue by yourself. Before you will be allowed to start playing, you will get a notification which asks if you would review the Pokémon GO Privacy Policy for information regarding the use of the app. You can either press ‘OK’ if you agree with this policy or ‘Privacy Policy’ if you want to read this policy. It is not obligated to read the Privacy Policy. When you have pressed ‘OK’, you can start playing the game. However, if you have answered in a previous notification that the app is not allowed to track your location, you will constantly see an error which says: ‘’GPS signal not found. (11).’’ Hence, you need to give Niantic Labs access to your location, because otherwise you are not able to play the game. When you have gone to your settings and provided Niantic Labs with permission in order to track your location, you need to create an avatar. When this is done, you will see your avatar on a map, which match the real-life surroundings which you are currently in, which is directly taken from Google Maps. The goal of the game is to catch as much Pokémon as you can and to train them so they perform well in battles against other Pokémon. Pokémon are virtual creatures which mostly match with animals, but they have the ability to perform special attacks. Each Pokémon has different attacks and therefore, each Pokémon is unique. In order to catch these Pokémon, you need to walk around in your real-life surroundings. When you do this, you will see the avatar on your app moving in the same direction as you are moving. When you are walking, it is likely that once in a while a Pokémon pops up on your mobile screen. When this happens, you can click on them and catch them using PokéBalls, which are the items you catch Pokémon with. There are many different Pokémon and there is a difference in rareness as well.  

Furthermore, when you are walking and see your avatar moving on the map on your phone, it is not possible to see other people’s avatar walking which are in the neighborhood. However, it is not the case that the locations of the Pokémon are different among users of the game. A Pokémon is located at a particular place for a particular time and this holds for all the players. Note that it is only possible once to catch a Pokémon at the same place and the same time. It will be possible again to catch the same Pokémon at that particular spot, but only after a while.

Another feature of the game is the hatching of eggs. Within these eggs are Pokémon, which need to be hatched by walking a certain amount of kilometers in real life. When you are moving fast (e.g. in a car), the distance you travel will not be counted for the hatching of your eggs, since this is considered cheating.

The places where you are able to battle against other Pokémon of other users of the game are gyms. At these gyms you can fight and earn rewards. Another place where you are able to earn some rewards are called PokéStops, which are, among other things, places such as train stations, special buildings and artworks. In order to earn these rewards, you need to walk to these PokéStops and click on them on your app.