Marc Deschamps has been writing about video games and popular culture for more than a decade, at various outlets. Prior to joining GameRant, Marc served as a freelancer, staff writer, and editor at sites like IGN, Nintendojo, and ComicBook. Gaming is one of Marc’s oldest loves, but he also has a deep background in comics and movies. In addition to being a published comic writer, Marc is a Rotten Tomatoes-verified critic that has reviewed movies and interviewed directors, actors, and actresses.
Niantic Spatial has refuted claims that Pokemon GO data was used for the purpose of training military drones for the defense company Vantor, following a report from the outlet Trouw. In-game scanning was previously a feature in Pokemon GO that encouraged players to record videos around geographic locations marked as PokeStops. The feature is at the heart of reports about how the developers have used data collected from players.

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Niantic Spatial addressed its partnership with Vantor in a discussion with IGN. The company explicitly says that “sharing this data is not part of the agreement,” meaning scans from users have not been exchanged. While ground scans from users of games like Ingress and Pokemon GO were used to train Niantic Spatial’s own models, none of that data has been provided to Vantor. PokeStop scanning was added to Pokemon GO several years ago, but was removed from the game following Niantic’s acquisition by Scopely. Niantic Spatial was not part of that acquisition, and exists separately.

- Released
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July 6, 2016
- Engine
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Unity
- Multiplayer
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Online Multiplayer, Online Co-Op