‘Pokemon Go’ Becomes Target Of US Senator Over Privacy Issues

It’s undeniable that “Pokemon Go” has taken over the world, with so many players joining the case, ignoring injuries and privacy concerns in the process. One person who doesn’t think that the trend is harmless is a Senator Al Franken, and he just sent “Niantic Labs” a letter demanding to know what types of data the developers were collecting from users.

Senator Franken is known as a champion of privacy issues, taking on tech giants and telcos for their questionable data-mining practices in the past, according to CNET. Now, he has set his sights on the developers of what is probably the most popular technological phenomenon since the inception of social media, sending them a letter to express his thoughts on the app.

"I am concerned about the extent to which Niantic may be unnecessarily collecting, using, and sharing a wide range of users' personal information without their appropriate consent,” Franken wrote. "From a user's general profile information to their precise location data and device identifiers, Niantic has access to a significant amount of information, unless users -- many of whom are children -- opt-out of this collection."

To be sure, “Niantic Labs” has been collecting data on users whenever they used the “Pokemon Go” app, which is only to be expected considering the range of information that is necessary to identify in order for the app to work. On the other hand, there have been some instances where the developers went a bit too far such as the case where they asked for full access to users’ Gmail and iPhone accounts in order to use the game, according to the Wall Street Journal.

On “Niantic’s” part, the company has made some effort to address the issue, saying that the request for more access was a mistake and that those who did grant access have nothing to worry about as they did nothing with the information.