Pokémon GO has access to your entire google account

[+Warwagon MVC]

Quote

 

While Pokémon GO users (there are millions and millions of them already) are collecting all 150 of the game's fictional species of creatures, Niantic and Nintendo are gaining access to and collecting a lot of your personal information.

It's not just the ability to track your location, or the fact that the app is linked with your Google account that's worrisome; most users accepted a level of invasive monitoring willingly, given the game is about GPS-based hunting.

But the app gives away way more than that to the company. Way more.

 

Anyone who signed up for Pokémon GO with a Google account (the other option, a Pokémon.com account, is unavailable right now) has perhaps unknowingly given Nintendo and developer Niantic (formerly owned by Google, but still part of Google's investment portfolio) full account access. That means they can see/edit/collect just about anything related to your Google account. Emails, photos, documents, all of your past location and search history: it can see all of this stuff, from even before you started using the app. It can also send emails as you—kind of the number one, red flag, alarm bell hacker opportunity in the digital world, aside from banking.

 

It's a potentially disastrous security risk: just one hack or leak of user information would mean compromises in Google information for a group of people about as large as the number of active daily users for Twitter on Android.

Even if the data isn't hacked, these two companies are already getting access to (and the ability to edit) your info—pictures, emails, documents—basically everything they could ever want, except a few key abilities like using Google Wallet, changing your password, or deleting your account).

 

http://www.popsci.com/pokemon-go-has-access-to-your-entire-google-account?src=SOC&dom=fb

[Veiva]

1) Is this about Pokemon Go's requested app permissions, or is there evidence of the app actually making full use of said permissions?

 

2) Don't most Android apps demand most every permission?

[PGHammer]

warwagon - that is actually the default setting for most Google applications or games; it's not new, let alone unique to, Pokemon GO.  (It's been posted in the Android thread before as well.)