Pokémon Go data trained AI that could assist military drones in war zones

An AI model trained on data collected from users of Pokémon Go will potentially help military drones find their location in war zones.

Pokémon Go, a 2016 augmented reality mobile game, allowed users to find and catch Pokémon in the real world using the cameras on their mobile phones, and exploded in popularity across the world. In 2018, the company reported having more than 800m downloads worldwide.

A 2021 update to the game introduced Pokéstops, which gave users in-game rewards for scanning real world locations using their devices. It required users to opt in and upload the recording.

Niantic, which created Pokémon in partnership with Nintendo, collected users’ location scan data before the company sold its gaming division in 2025.

The historical scans were used to train the company’s AI models to recognise and interpret spaces in the physical world.

Following reporting from DroneXL this week, Niantic confirmed a partnership with Vantor, a company that specialises in spatial detection software for drones, including those used by the military.

The agreement is designed to allow drones to navigate and coordinate precisely in areas where GPS is not available.

“The partnership addresses a critical vulnerability in modern operations: GPS unavailability, spoofing, interference, and jamming,” the December announcement stated. “When satellite signals are compromised, autonomous systems and field teams lose their ability to orient, coordinate or maintain accurate situational awareness.”

Vantor’s chief product officer, Peter Wilczynski, highlighted the benefits of the two companies working together in a December interview with Tectonic Defence.

“The modern battle space is going to be complete with different systems, and you’re going to want to upgrade those systems quickly—bringing new hardware online faster than new software,” Wilczynski said.

Both companies told Guardian Australia that ground scans from the game were not provided to Vantor as part of the partnership, but the scans from Pokémon Go were used to train Niantic’s foundation models.

“AR Scans collected through Pokémon 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 Niantic spokesperson said.

Both companies said the partnership was still in its early stages.

Tom Sulston, head of policy for tech policy think tank Digital Rights Watch said the use of civilian data for military ends was troubling.

“While they may have disclaimers in their Ts&Cs, we know that most people don’t read vast legal documents when they want to play a video game,” he said.

“We need regulators to focus on ‘best interests of the user’ or ‘fair and reasonable’ tests to keep users safe from exploitation like this.

“While we’re waiting for the government to catch up, it’s important that we remember that ‘free’ software services often treat the user not as a customer but as the product to be sold.”

Dr Rob Nicholls, senior researcher associated at the University of Sydney’s centre for AI, trust and governance, said the case was likely the tip of the iceberg regarding data collected from apps being used for other purposes.

“We have already seen that Strava data has been used to identify the location of military facilities,” he said. “Indeed, directives not to use devices with GPS and sharing have come from a number of different militaries.”

Vantor announced in February a deal with the US Army of up to US$217m for software used in training.

Niantic sold its video game division to Saudi Arabia-owned Scopely for US$3.5bn in 2025.