Pokemon Go Data Was Used To Help Train AI Systems Being Developed For Military Drones

Pokemon Go Data Was Used To Help Train AI Systems Being Developed For Military Drones (dronexl.co) 31 Pokemon Go players' optional location scans reportedly helped train Niantic Spatial's visual positioning system, which uses camera imagery and 3D maps to navigate when GPS is unavailable or jammed. According to DroneXL, that technology is now being paired with Vantor's drone navigation software for military and intelligence use, raising questions about whether gamers understood that footage collected for in-game rewards could eventually support defense systems. From the report: 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. I have spent years covering how drones lose their way the moment an electronic warfare unit switches on a jammer, a problem that has spread from the battlefield into civilian airspace, from Ukrainian workshops cycling through navigation generations to American programs scrambling for alternatives. The unsettling part of this story is not the technology. It is where the training data came from, and whether the people who supplied it would have agreed had anyone explained the destination. "Now as part of Scopely (the Saudi-owned company that acquired Niantic last year for $3.5 billion), Pokemon GO data is not shared with Niantic Spatial," a company spokesperson said in a statement to Kotaku. "AR Scans collected through Pokemon GO were submitted voluntarily by players who opted into the feature and were subject to the applicable Terms of Service and Privacy Policy at the time. The discontinuation of AR scanning and the end of data sharing with Niantic Spatial were part of the transition planning associated with Pokemon GO's move to Scopely." I have spent years covering how drones lose their way the moment an electronic warfare unit switches on a jammer, a problem that has spread from the battlefield into civilian airspace, from Ukrainian workshops cycling through navigation generations to American programs scrambling for alternatives. The unsettling part of this story is not the technology. It is where the training data came from, and whether the people who supplied it would have agreed had anyone explained the destination. "Now as part of Scopely (the Saudi-owned company that acquired Niantic last year for $3.5 billion), Pokemon GO data is not shared with Niantic Spatial," a company spokesperson said in a statement to Kotaku. "AR Scans collected through Pokemon GO were submitted voluntarily by players who opted into the feature and were subject to the applicable Terms of Service and Privacy Policy at the time. The discontinuation of AR scanning and the end of data sharing with Niantic Spatial were part of the transition planning associated with Pokemon GO's move to Scopely." Oh no (Score:1) Did you know that people who invented tires helped kill millions? What about all the millions of people killed by steel manufacturing? This can not stand! Re: (Score:1) McDonalds never started out to become a real estate company. And yet they sure as hell are now. No matter how we might want to dismiss what data mining companies are, there is no doubt what YOU have become in their eyes. The Product. Whores, are at least smart enough to charge money for it. Addicts, give it away. Pokemon go go go! (Score:1) Get off your buts and Pokemon Go do some pre-strike reconnaissance! Terrain following navigation tech predates GPS (Score:3) Re:Terrain following navigation tech predates GPS (Score:4, Interesting) Using the Pokemon data is a pretty interesting repurposing of the data. It's literally not repurposing. They always intended the game to deliver high resolution imagery coupled with positioning information that could be used for non-game purposes. Re: (Score:2) Like usual, for anyone who doubts that was the intention, it's right there on page 2,051 of the super-fine print! Quite clever, really. (Score:3) - "I'm sorry, general, we have no visibility into this particular area." - "Just put a rare Pokémon in there and let the public do the rest." Re: (Score:2) Nope. That's just Vladimir Putin. Dupe? (Score:2) Didn't we have the news like 6 months ago? And we know this basically since when Pokemon Go was still called Ingress. All your gaming data belongs to us (Score:1) Re: (Score:3) Make it about morals if you like. However the reality is the data would have been gathered some other way. Harvested from AR see the product in your room, and navigation aides probably. There is a bigger reality about data that I think every needs to come to terms with and integrate into the decision making at levels. That is 1) Any data aggregated and stored absolutely will be used for activities that fall outside the original purported intents for gathering the data, be that entirely innocently, because t Re: (Score:2) The only real solution here is for the public to continue to reject things like flock cameras, and autonomous vehicles. Might as well start planning for a future where everyone has their own personal vehicle. All ICE, SUVs and diesel powered. A hellscape of your own making just so facial recognition doesn't find a picture of you buying fentanyl on a street corner back when you were a kid. Re: (Score:1) Re: (Score:2) Doesn't Google Maps Street View achieve the same, but with a more thorough street coverage? Kinda. They don't have the same accuracy because of the drive-by nature of the activity. They also skip a lot of roads, they can't leave roads or trails, etc. Pokémon Go pokestop scans were in sort of in random locations Nope. They were in apparently random locations that Niantic wanted scanned. They fill in the gaps left by scanning programs like gmaps. Re: (Score:3) And, they could potentially do this kind of thing with anyone's cell phone at anytime... and it wouldn't surprise me if the mechanisms are in place to remotely activate GPS and back camera without you knowing (bypassing permissions)... sorta like using Gotham's cell phones to find the Joker in The Dark Knight. Remember... your cell phone wasn't made in America, so despite assurances that it can't spy on you or whatever, who really knows what code or abilities might be baked into the main CPU. Same as your l Mandatory Post (Score:2) Gotta Kill 'em All! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinpokomon (Score:2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] Duplicate? (Score:2) Back in the global Pokemon Go craze ... (Score:4, Interesting) ... Moscow was clogged with Pokemon Go players, just like any other big city on the planet back in the summer of 2016. It was insane. Gorky Park, Victory Park, Arbat clogged with young people running around with their phones, collecting their Pokemons. I was surprised seeing the same crazy stuff going on just like in my homestates capital of Duesseldorf. That such data is enough to program homing drones with ultra high precision is of no surprise. The sheer amount of data is enough to get all the accuracy you need. Re: (Score:2) old news? (Score:1) Another euphemism (Score:1) Sounds Familiar (Score:2) Isn't this the plot of the first Pokemon movie? A military experiment creates Mewtwo, a weaponized Pokémon who rebels against his makers and forces humans and Pokémon to confront the consequences of treating living beings as tools. Pika-chuuuu! (Score:2) The drone knows where it is at all times, because it knows where Pikachu isn't. Re: Article. (Score:2)