When you hold up your phone in a park to scan benches, street lights, and ancient buildings, just in order to capture a rare Pokémon, you might be creating a "map" for an artificial intelligence that could be used in warfare in the future.
According to a report by the British newspaper The Guardian on June 12, the real-world scanning data actively uploaded by Pokémon GO players is being used to train artificial intelligence models that can recognize and understand the physical space. In the future, these models may be used for military drones to navigate and locate in GPS-free environments, raising concerns about the militarization of civilian data.
Pokémon GO is an augmented reality mobile game that was released in 2016. Players can use their phone cameras to search and capture Pokémon in the real world. The game became immediately popular upon its launch, and as of 2018, its global downloads exceeded 800 million. To date, there are 30 billion real-world environment images uploaded by users worldwide.
In 2021, this game updated with a “Pokémon Supply Station” real-world scanning feature. Players can obtain in-game rewards by using devices to scan real locations. Using this feature requires players to actively grant permission and upload the scanning records.
Augmented Reality Game "Pokémon GO" Interface
It is worth noting that Niantic, which developed Pokémon-related games in collaboration with Nintendo, had collected a large amount of real-world positioning data from players just before selling its gaming business segment in 2025.
According to earlier reports by Dutch media, these scanned materials are used to train the company's artificial intelligence model, enabling it to recognize and analyze various spatial elements in the real world.
Niantic, Inc.'s spin-off company Niantic Spatial announced a collaboration with Vantor, an American defense contractor specializing in unmanned aerial space exploration software. Vantor's products have been adopted by certain national military branches for use.
This cooperation agreement aims to enable drones to achieve precise navigation and coordinated actions in areas without GPS signal coverage.
The official announcement states: "This cooperation has addressed a major bottleneck in modern combat operations, namely the issues of GPS signal loss, signal falsification, interference, and shielding. Once satellite signals are disrupted, autonomous combat equipment and frontline teams will be unable to determine their orientation, coordinate actions, and will also have difficulty accurately assessing the battlefield situation."
In a media interview last December, Peter Vyrchny, Chief Product Officer of Vantor, discussed the advantages of the cooperation between the two companies. He said, "Modern battlefields are equipped with various combat systems. The industry needs to quickly upgrade these systems, and the speed of hardware updates is often faster than that of the accompanying software."
However, both companies told The Guardian that this collaboration did not transfer the original game scanning data to Vantor. The scanning materials for Pokémon GO are only used to train Niantic’s own basic artificial intelligence model.
A spokesperson for Niantic Spatial said, “The augmented reality scans collected through Pokémon GO are uploaded voluntarily by players who actively enabled this feature. The uploading process must comply with the current user service terms and privacy policies.”
Both companies also revealed that this collaboration is still in its initial stage.
Even so, the prospect of militarizing civilian data has already caused widespread concern in the industry.
According to Tom Salstead, the policy director of the technology policy think tank Digital Rights Observatory, the use of civilian data for military purposes is a matter of great concern. 'Even if companies include exclusions in their user agreements, most players will not read the lengthy legal documents when playing games.'
He pointed out: “Regulators should conduct reviews based on the principles of ‘the maximum rights of users’ and ‘fairness and reasonableness’, to prevent users from being exploited by such data.”
"Before the relevant regulatory policies are fully implemented, we must recognize one thing: various free software services often do not regard users as consumers, but rather as goods that can be sold."
Dr. Rob Nichols, a senior researcher at the Center for Artificial Intelligence, Trust, and Governance at the University of Sydney, also stated that this incident is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of data collected by mobile applications being used for other purposes.
"Previously, data from the sports app Strava was used to locate military facilities. This is why, multiple national militaries have issued orders, prohibiting soldiers from using electronic devices with location-sharing and data sharing functions." Nickels said.
Earlier, overseas media analyzed that with the vast amount of real-world footage accumulated through games, companies can establish a three-dimensional visual positioning system with precision meeting military standards. Once satellite navigation signals are blocked or interfered with, military drones can independently carry out precise strike missions using this system.
In February of this year, Vantor finalized a project related to the US military, supplying training software to the American side. The maximum value of this cooperation order reached $217 million. On the other hand, Niantic sold its own gaming division to the Saudi-owned game company Scopely for $3.5 billion in 2025.
