You know this Pokémon GO thing may have gotten out of hand when the government’s getting involved–or not getting involved, as the case may be.
Workers and contractors at the Pentagon received a memo last month which alerted staffers that Pokémon GO was not to be downloaded and played on phones within any U.S. Defense Department facility. The fear is that the app’s data usage could also be utilized to access sensitive information or “provide pinpoint accuracy on the locations of rooms and other sensitive facilities,” according to the Washington Times.
Since part of Pokémon GO involves using the phone’s inner GPS to track the player’s location and spawns virtual Pokémon accordingly, it’s not a completely unfounded fear. While the app itself originally collected larger amounts of data, a later update limited the amount of data that game developer Niantic could have access to.
Initially, there had also been a Pokémon gym located within the Pentagon as well as the White House. The gym at the Pentagon was eventually removed, but it’s being reported that the battle for the White House gym still continues to rage on amongst Pokémon trainers.
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