An AI mannequin educated on information collected from customers of Pokémon Go will doubtlessly assist army drones discover their location in warfare zones.
Pokémon Go, a 2016 augmented actuality cellular sport, allowed gamers to seek out and catch Pokémon in the true world utilizing the cameras on their cellphones, and exploded in recognition. In 2018, the corporate reported having greater than 800m downloads worldwide.
A 2021 replace to the sport launched Pokéstops, which gave gamers in-game rewards for scanning actual areas utilizing their gadgets. It required customers to choose in and add the recording.
Niantic, which created Pokémon in partnership with Nintendo, collected customers’ location scan information earlier than the corporate offered its gaming division in 2025.
The historic scans have been used to coach the corporate’s AI fashions to recognise and interpret areas within the bodily world, as first reported by DroneXL this week.
Niantic Spatial – a spin-off firm from Niantic – introduced its partnership with Vantor, an organization that specialises in spatial detection software program for drones, together with these utilized by some militaries, in December.
The settlement is designed to permit drones to navigate and coordinate exactly in areas the place GPS isn’t accessible.
“The partnership addresses a crucial vulnerability in trendy operations: GPS unavailability, spoofing, interference, and jamming,” the announcement acknowledged. “When satellite tv for pc alerts are compromised, autonomous methods and area groups lose their capability to orient, coordinate or preserve correct situational consciousness.”
Vantor’s chief product officer, Peter Wilczynski, highlighted the advantages of the 2 corporations working collectively in a December interview with Tectonic Defence.
“The trendy battle house goes to be full with completely different methods, and also you’re going to need to improve these methods rapidly—bringing new {hardware} on-line sooner than new software program,” Wilczynski stated.
Each corporations instructed Guardian Australia that floor scans from the sport weren’t offered to Vantor as a part of the partnership, however the scans from Pokémon Go have been used to coach Niantic’s basis fashions.
“AR Scans collected via Pokémon Go have been submitted voluntarily by gamers who opted into the function and have been topic to the relevant Phrases of Service and Privateness Coverage on the time,” the Niantic Spatial spokesperson stated.
Each corporations stated the partnership was nonetheless in its early levels.
Tom Sulston, head of coverage for tech coverage suppose tank Digital Rights Watch stated the usage of civilian information for army ends was troubling.
“Whereas they might have disclaimers of their Ts&Cs, we all know that most individuals don’t learn huge authorized paperwork after they need to play a online game,” he stated.
“We want regulators to give attention to ‘greatest pursuits of the person’ or ‘truthful and affordable’ exams to maintain customers protected from exploitation like this.
“Whereas we’re ready for the federal government to catch up, it’s vital that we do not forget that ‘free’ software program companies typically deal with the person not as a buyer however because the product to be offered.”
Dr Rob Nicholls, senior researcher related on the College of Sydney’s centre for AI, belief and governance, stated the case was doubtless the tip of the iceberg relating to information collected from apps getting used for different functions.
“We now have already seen that Strava information has been used to determine the situation of army services,” he stated. “Certainly, directives to not use gadgets with GPS and sharing have come from a variety of completely different militaries.”
Vantor introduced in February a take care of the US Military of as much as US$217m for coaching software program.
Niantic offered its online game division to Saudi Arabian-owned Scopely for US$3.5bn in 2025.
