2 Minute Drill: Pokemon Go's Hidden Agenda: How AR Apps Map the World With Drex DeFord

This transcription is provided by artificial intelligence. We believe in technology but understand that even the smartest robots can sometimes get speech recognition wrong.  Hey everyone. I'm Drex, and this is the two minute drill where I cover some of the hottest security stories in healthcare, all part of the 2 29 project, cyber and risk community here at this week. Health, it's great to see you today. Here's some stuff you might wanna know about. I was talking to a friend this weekend. She was telling me about something that kind of surprised me. It was about the terms of service agreements that we all click, except on kind of almost automatically whenever we load a new app or another piece of software on our phone or on our laptop here at home and at work, and. This story apparently has been out there for a while, but it was news to me. So remember Pokemon Go The game that sent all those millions of people into parks and neighborhoods and city streets chasing Pikachu and Squirtle, and I can't believe I even actually know these names. It was all part of an augmented reality game. Well, it turns out Niantic. The company behind Pokemon Go regularly updated its terms of service and the changes. Gave them broad rights to use data that any player generated your location, camera scans. Movement patterns, all that data could be used to train what turns out to be maybe a massive geospatial AI model of the real world. But here's the kicker. Niantic may not have detailed data about certain places. Let's just say for example, a hospital campus or a clinic or a corporate facility or your condo building. One of the ways they can get more information. About that place is to, to strategically place Pokemon or in-game events at that location, and then players show up with their phones out and their cameras on. And as part of that process, those players help the company fill in the blanks. It's crowdsource mapping disguised as entertainment. Now, none of this means that Niantic did anything illegal, the terms of service. Spell it out if you take time to read it, but. It highlights a growing problem with digital consent. Most people top agree without even realizing. They volunteered to help build a global AR map, a map that might include sensitive areas they never intended to share for privacy and security folks, the risk here, isn't it just about breaches. It's really about boundaries and what happens when a consumer app can use gameplay to quietly gather data about places where privacy still really matters, like medical facilities or schools or private property. In a world where your every move can feed an algorithm free to play also means you are the data. So read the terms and understand the trade offs. And remember, not every quest from a Pokemon ends with a prize. Sometimes you are the prize more on this story and all the latest healthcare, tech and security news at this week, health.com. By the way, I'll post a link in the comments that'll take you directly to Spotify or Apple so that you can sign up for my UNH hacked podcast channel. That's where the two minute drill and unh, the news and all the other shows live. And as they say, while you're there, smash the like and subscribe button. And um, again, look for those links in the comments. If that's it for today's two minute drill. Thanks for being here. Stay a little paranoid and I will see you around campus.