Mobile apps, like suddenly all the popular games can become in the capable hands of the special services excellent technical means for intelligence gathering and espionage. This was reported to “RIA Novosti” veteran of the Russian special services, the General-the major of FSB in the reserve Alexander Mikhailov, who in different years has also served in the interior Ministry and Drug control.
Pokemon Go is a free app based on augmented reality technology — the digital and real worlds are connected, since the picture displayed on the screen of the smartphone, is projected onto the location of the real world. One of the main goals of the game, catch a pokemon, was forced to take to the streets, parks, beaches many people are completely absorbed by this process.
“Imagine that this “animal” does not appear in a Park, at a secret facility, where a draftee or another soldier takes photographs and his camera. On their own and without any coercion, recruiting. It’s ideal scheme of data collection for intelligence agencies. And nobody will pay attention, hobby-the fashionable,” — said Mikhailov.
According to him, such a scheme for collecting data could really come up with intelligence agencies, but also the Creator of the app just could not think about the consequences and about the fact that someone would use his invention in this way.
“You can’t say that the same officer and soldier will be to use the game at work. But the chance is there and, most likely, security services in the formulation did not participate. But they are unlikely to pass by such opportunities for data collection” — says the veteran.
The game has already caused a number of incidents. So, on Wednesday, the administration Holocaust memorial Museum in Washington asked its visitors to stop to catch pokémon in the Museum building.
Later, the Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau, located on the territory of the former concentration camps, has banned visitors to play Pokemon Go on its territory, calling such behavior disrespectful. In the US, four members of the NYPD was captured on video for a lesson on catching “pocket monsters”.
