 "A virtual map of Bryant Park is displayed on the screen as a man plays the augmented reality mobile game \"Pokemon Go\" by Nintendo in New York City")
As Pokemon Go, the location-based and augmented reality mobile game, goes viral in India soon after its debut in the US, sector veterans say the growing concerns about the game breaching users’ privacy and putting their security at stake are exagerrated.
Developed by Niantic Inc and published by The Pokémon Company as part of the Pokémon franchise, Pokemon Go was released in the US, Australia and New Zealand on July 6, followed by Germany.
Yet to be launched in India, it reached 21 million users worldwide on Thursday, becoming the biggest mobile game in the history of the US, according to SurveyMonkey. This country is evidently one of the biggest markets for its new gaming app as well, say those in the sector.
Niantic was started as an internal start-up at Google in 2010 by John Hanke but was spun out of the Menlo Park, California-based giant as an independent entity last year. It uses a customised version of Google Maps to create a digital playing field. The game, which uses smartphone GPS and camera, allows users to capture virtual creatures, aka Pokemons, hovering through the real world. The players then train these creatures and battle with other players. These virtual creatures usually appear in public places like libraries, churches, temples and other other such places marked on the digital map.
According to a cyber security firm, F-Secure, privacy and security concerns regarding Pokémon Go are overblown. While there are claims that Niantic gives full access to users’ entire Google account, which users use to create an account for the game, the game maker was never able to read users’ Gmail and the permissiveness has more to do with Google’s settings than Niantic’s, said F-Secure in a recent report.
“To play the game, users need to log into it through their Google account. It is not Pokemon Go that is collecting the information about the users; it is Google which typically asks for permission to access users’ information,” said Amit Nath, head of Asia Pacific (Corporate Business) for F-Secure. "More, Google already has most of information about its users, so this isn’t anything new for them."
“While the success of Pokémon Go may be extraordinary, the privacy and security concerns are typical of any well-known app,” said its security advisor, Sean Sullivan, in the report.
Krishna Milan Rao, co-founder and chief executive of Hyderabad- based artificial intelligence gaming technology start-up Empower Labs, said Pokemon Go, like any other mobile gaming application, asks for standard security permissions from users, "like any other game such as Candy Crush or Clash of Clans”. Adding: “The important thing for users is to go through the privacy agreement before signing up for the game. Everything is clearly written over there.”
Nath said that is typically users’ responsibility, as they agree to what information Google can access on their devices.“So, we advise users to create a new Gmail account to play the game, in case their account is hacked and the security of their Gmail account is compromised.”
There could, he conceded, be instances where cyber criminals might try to take advantage of the app’s popularity and Android’s laxer security standards to spread infected fake “backdoored” versions of the app to get inside users' devices.
Meanwhile, Indian gaming professionals see it as a boon for the sector here. For, the game has been able to get users to use augmented reality application, paving the way for other such games to take off.
“Pokemon Go has come at the right time. It has increased awareness in users about augmented reality gaming applications, which will help the market grow rapidly,” said Rao of Empower Labs.
