Pokémon Go does not snoop on your Google Account developer insists
You may not realise it, but Pokémon Go on iOS grants The Pokémon Company and developer Niantic full access to your Google Account.
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That includes, but is not limited to: viewing and sending email, viewing and deleting Google Drive documents, seeing what you’ve been watching on YouTube and accessing your contacts.
Sign into the app with your Google account and you are giving Pokémon Go the keys to a treasure trove of personal data, although both Niantic and The Pokémon Company have said the level of access granted to the app is a mistake.
“We recently discovered that the Pokémon Go account creation process on iOS erroneously requests full access permission for the user’s Google account,” The Pokémon Company and Niantic explained in a joint statement.
“However, Pokémon Go only accesses basic Google profile information (specifically, your User ID and email address) and no other Google account information is or has been accessed or collected.
“Once we became aware of this error, we began working on a client-side fix to request permission for only basic Google profile information, in line with the data that we actually access.
“Google has verified that no other information has been received or accessed by Pokémon GO or Niantic. Google will soon reduce Pokémon GO’s permission to only the basic profile data that Pokémon GO needs, and users do not need to take any actions themselves.”
Despite the promise, it’s concerning that the developer was only made aware of the issue after users pointed it out.
Pokémon Go’s lure feature has also come under fire after the arrest of armed robbers using it to determine the location of players. Safety fears have also centred on the number of children playing the game.
There’s still no sign of Pokémon Go launching officially in the UK, although Niantic has said it should only be a couple more days.
Anyone who wants to play Pokémon Go now in the UK on Android can still do so via an easy workaround. And if you are now playing, you may want to read our full Pokémon Go guide to get you started.
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