Even in military scenarios, visual positioning systems do not necessarily come with ethical issues. For example, the Ukrainian military is deploying battlefield robots and drones equipped with their own visual positioning systems to survive widespread GPS jamming in the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war. “If this allows Ukrainians to win a just war against the aggressor Russia, that is a good development,” Van den Hoven told Trau.
However, Dutch newspapers also interviewed Floris de Hinn over the years. Pokemon GO Players raised concerns about gameplay data supporting U.S. military systems. De Hing specifically described himself as “strongly opposed to the war that President Trump is currently waging against Iran.”
“The training data came from people who thought they were catching Pikachu and, under licenses that were rarely read, sold off chains ending in sovereign wealth funds and defense primes,” wrote Hay Kesteroh, editor-in-chief and founder of the news website DroneXL. “Consent obtained for a game is not consent for a weapons program, even if the end use turns out to be defensible.”
A Vantor spokesperson told Ars that the company is “not using any.” Pokemon GO Additionally, we do not have access to any information from. Pokemon GO Dataset. ” Similarly, a Niantic Spatial spokesperson said the agreement between the two companies does not include direct sharing of game data.
However, some Pokemon GO Players like De Hinn will probably be uncomfortable with the idea that their gameplay data is helping train Niantic Spatial’s models in the first place, especially if the company’s visual positioning system could be used for military applications. Vantor confirmed that it is “considering adapting Niantic Spatial’s ground-based visual positioning system” to work alongside Vantor’s existing “GPS-rejected positioning capabilities,” which currently rely on satellite imagery.
Niantic Spatial told Ars that it does not have continuous access to current data. Pokemon GO Since May 2025, the game license belongs to video game publisher Scopely, so players may want to stay on top of the game’s terms of service and privacy policy to understand how their data is currently being used or could be used in the future. This is a lesson that goes beyond that. Pokemon GO.
