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The new game "Pokémon GO" was recently released for smartphones in the USA. This is a further development of the well-known Pokémon series from the Japanese game manufacturer Nintendo into a so-called "Augmented Reality" game, ie a game that uses a smartphone to mix reality (e.g. camera images) and game content (e.g. three-dimensional Pokémon) .

"Pokémon GO" is developed and operated by Niantic Labs, Inc., a former subsidiary of Alphabet, Inc. - better known as the Google Group. Google still holds substantial stakes in the company, whose managing director is a former Google vice president.

The game has now also started in Germany, and some users have had access to the game for a longer period of time. If the immediate success of the game, as it can currently be seen in the USA, becomes just as clear here, a large number of young people with smartphones as well as many adults will soon become addicted to Pokémon (again).

In contrast to the previous Pokémon games, however, there is one important difference: the serious invasion of the privacy of the players. This is unbelievably large, even by Google standards, which is why we have decided to explain the effects of consent in this form in advance.

Link to the Pokémon GO privacy agreement:

German: <a href="https://www.nianticlabs.com/privacy/pokemongo/de"> https://www.nianticlabs.com/privacy/pokemongo/de </a>

English: <a href="https://www.nianticlabs.com/privacy/pokemongo/en"> https://www.nianticlabs.com/privacy/pokemongo/en </a>

<a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20160711121746/https://www.nianticlabs.com/privacy/pokemongo/en/"> Archived version, in case the online version changes </a>

First of all, the note that, according to these conditions, children under the age of 13 may only participate in the game after a legal representative (e.g. a parent) has registered with "The Pokémon Company International, Inc." and has indicated that the own child is allowed to participate in the game (Section 2.iii).

The same applies to Google accounts in general - registering a Google account, e.g. to use proprietary Android smartphones, Google Mail, the Ingress game and other Google products, requires the written consent of a parent (according to German law: of all legal guardians).

Regardless of age, players and, if applicable, parents then consent to the following data being collected:

Google and/or Facebook account data

In-game messages

Hardware data and serial numbers of the smartphone

Location data (from mobile network, WiFi and GPS)

First of all, it looks like all of this is necessary for the game to work. It is important, however, that the operators expressly secure the right to save all this data as long as they want, even if this is no longer necessary for the game.

Section 3 of the data protection provisions explains to whom the above-mentioned stored data will be passed on:

Any other company that will help run the game

Summarized and anonymized data for analysis and market research

Buyers and shareholders in Niantic Labs, now and in the future