Niantic received a ton of real world data scans from Pokemon GO players who scanned streets, parks, and even buildings around them. Now it has emerged that the data is now being used by the US military for its drones. Niantic Spatial owns the data it received in Pokemon GO and it is set to be put into drones and military robots. Pokemon GO players had no idea that their data would be used in this way. You can read more about this topic here.
“Those roughly 30 billion environmental scans are now owned by Niantic Spatial, and they helped train a camera-based navigation model that a U.S. defense contractor is preparing to put into drones and other military robots. Most of the players had no idea.
The pipeline runs from a mobile game to the battlefield in three steps. Players scanned the physical world. Niantic Spatial turned those scans into a 3D map that lets a machine locate itself by sight when satellite signals fail. And in December 2025, Niantic Spatial announced a partnership with Vantor, the defense and intelligence firm formerly known as Maxar Intelligence, to fuse that ground-level system with Vantor’s aerial navigation software for use in GPS-denied operations.”
That’s pretty bs, wtf. Niantic wasn’t satisfied with the money they got from the game? They’re gonna turn around and sell out their player data to the military for drones??? Jeez
Call of duty: Pokemon
man I glad I stop playing Pokémon go years ago
Sound really shady to me for them to train military drones in the US and army defense.
No wonder… How do you think Zuckerberg got rich so fast thanks to Facebook?….
No its about Zuckerberg getting rich, its about this type of topic related to Pokemon GO!
‘Merica!
I always knew there was a bigger reason behind this. No ads, and you could play it completely free. But I honestly thought they were just selling this data to MS, Google, or WAZE. This is just plain fucked up.
Fuck them royaly.
Would it be funny if the drones just flew away to where gyms were.
Lol
It’s never enough
Thank god I already stopped playing
The rich continue to exploit the working class, until we have nothing left, what else is new unfortunately
This is a fascinating intersection of gaming and military technology! I’m curious about the ethical implications. How do you think this data usage might affect player behavior or privacy in the long run?
Im still horrified by the thought of clueless players, opening the game and camera even in intimiate places or times.
They could have opened the game in their home which the spouse naked or in minimal clothing thinking really nothing js being recorded (why would they? The game never poped a clear message saying they record the camera data) and nude pics were sent to perves from niantic… How is this even legal??