Players of Pokémon Go may not have realized it, but they've been training more than their Pokémon.
Niantic, the developer behind the popular mobile game Pokémon Go, announced last week it is building an AI model to map the physical world. This "large geospatial model" would utilize data collected from players to "achieve spatial intelligence," the company said in a blog post.
Pokémon Go, first released in 2016, is an augmented reality game where players use their mobile phones to find and catch virtual Pokémon in the real world. In the game, which has had more than 600 million downloads since release, players can also collect items at PokéStops and battle at gyms, which are both located at real-world landmarks.
Niantic's model is training and processing data using geolocation information from scans players submit of those real-world locations while playing Pokémon Go and other Niantic games.
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"Over the past five years, Niantic has focused on building our Visual Positioning System (VPS), which uses a single image from a phone to determine its position and orientation using a 3D map built from people scanning interesting locations in our games and Scaniverse," the company said in the announcement.
The company said it currently has 10 million scanned locations from around the world for use with its VPS, with about 1 million new scans each week.
The model will process these geolocated images and create a 3D map, while also filling in information about geographic locations, "implementing a shared understanding of geographic locations, and comprehending places yet to be fully scanned," according to the blog post.
Companies looking for more ways to utilize customer data is becoming the "new normal," Anton Dahbura, the executive director of the Information Security Institute at Johns Hopkins University, told USA TODAY.
Niantic said the data is unique since it is taken from a "pedestrian perspective," unlike other mapping systems that rely on images captured by vehicles and may not include places inaccessible to cars.
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According to Niantic's privacy policy, the company collects location data, and other personal data, such as name and email address. The privacy policy outlines what is and isn't shared with third-party vendors, but not what the company does with the data. Niantic has a separate privacy policy for children who play the developer's games, and a portal where parents can set up and manage their child's profile.
"It's a typical problem with data privacy and the state of technology today," Dahbura said. "In fact, it's almost par for the course that companies are looking for ways to use their data, and it's even expected by investors."
It's understandable for users to worry about how their collected personal data is being stored or shared.
"Even with the best intentions, having troves of data that contain so much personal information can be dangerous," he said. "It can fall into the wrong hands, there can be a major data breach, and so on."
For users who are worried about their privacy, Dahbura suggests players think carefully about their usage.
"Use it exclusively in very public places, not places that you consider to be private, such as the interior of your home," he said.
Users should also minimize having other people in images, "especially your loved ones," he said.
Players should also be aware of location and how it is interwoven into so much personal data.
"A lot of people really underestimate the importance of location data," Dahbura said. "Our critical infrastructure is much broader than people realize, including transportation systems, pharmaceutical, financial, food manufacturing and so on. If people with bad intentions figure out that you have access to these kinds of facilities, it can be used not only against you but also against national security."