The wildly popular new mobile game “Pokemon GO” automatically grants itself extensive access to players’ personal information, which has some users concerned about their privacy.
When players sign up to play through Google on iOS, the application reportedly grants itself “full account access,” which gives the application and developer Niantic complete access to associated Google accounts, including Gmail, Google Drive and more.
In theory, Niantic can both read and send emails on behalf of its players, access their contact lists, view their private photos and modify documents stored on Google Drive.
According to LifeHacker, Android users are prompted to explicitly grant the app access, but iOS users are given no warning. Niantic Labs did not immediately respond to TheWrap’s request for comment.
According to Google’s own description of it’s privacy policy, full access, which is frequently granted to many of Google’s own apps, should only be granted to trusted apps: “This ‘Full account access’ privilege should only be granted to applications you fully trust, and which are installed on your personal computer, phone, or tablet.”
“If you’ve granted full account access to an app you don’t trust or recognize, we recommend that you revoke this permission by clicking the Revoke access button,” Google warns.