Pokémon Go Data Trains US Military Drones
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- DroneXL reported that data captured by Pokémon Go players will be used to train military drones and robots.
- Niantic Spatial partnered with Vantor in December 2025 to supply 30 billion Pokémon scans for training a Visual Positioning System for drone warfare.
- Trouw says the scans, collected since 2021 via player‑uploaded videos at Pokéstops, feed a Visual Positioning System that operates when GPS is jammed.
- Vantor denied using game data for its drones but did not clarify whether upcoming models were trained on the scans.
- Pokémon Go had an average of 110 million active monthly players as of December 2025, providing the massive data pool.
Why it matters: The U.S. military gains a GPS‑independent visual positioning system for drones, leveraging the massive 30 billion scans collected from 110 million Pokémon Go players, while Vantor secures a valuable data source for its defense contracts. At the same time, players’ location data is repurposed without transparent consent, raising privacy concerns.
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