pokemon-go-phone — Image by Getty/NurPhoto

Pokémon Go scans may have helped train AI models that can support drone navigation when GPS is unavailable or jammed.
Players voluntarily submitted scans of PokéStops, such as monuments, murals, and parks. Niantic Spatial now owns roughly 30 billion environmental scans.
Niantic Spatial says the scan data itself was not shared with its new partner, US software company Vantor. Partners receive access to the trained models instead.
Privacy experts warn that users may not realize game data can later support defense or military-related technology, even if consent was covered in terms and conditions.

Key Takeaways by nexos.ai, reviewed by Cybernews staff.

Remember running around town chasing that rare Pokémon? Turns out that scans you uploaded through Pokémon Go could help military drones navigate war zones.

Pokémon Go allows users to hunt Pokémon using their phone's camera and GPS. In 2021, it introduced a new feature that rewarded players for scanning PokéStops - real-world locations that act as in-game checkpoints.

These checkpoints include monuments, murals, and parks. Trouw said that now, roughly 30 billion of these environmental scans are owned by Niantic Spatial, a spin-off company from Niantic that helped create the game together with Nintendo.

DroneXL reported that the scans were used to build detailed 3D maps and train the company's foundation AI models, teaching it to recognize what physical spaces look like and understand location from camera images. The technology is already used commercially, including by Coco Robotics' delivery robots operating in cities across the US.

But in December 2025, Niantic Spatial announced a partnership with Vantor, a US software company that helps drones and autonomous systems navigate without GPS. Its technology is used in sectors including defense and government for autonomous navigation, mapping, and threat monitoring.

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The partnership aims to combine Niantic's ground-based location technology with Vantor's drone navigation system to help drones navigate in locations where GPS signals are unavailable.

“The partnership addresses a critical vulnerability in modern operations: GPS unavailability, spoofing, interference, and jamming,” the announcement stated, according to the Guardian. “When satellite signals are compromised, autonomous systems and field teams lose their ability to orient, coordinate or maintain accurate situational awareness.”

Both companies clarified to the Guardian that Pokémon Go location scans were used to train Niantic Spatial's real-world foundation models, but the scan data itself was not provided to Vantor as part of the partnership. Instead, partners receive access to the trained models.

“AR Scans collected through Pokémon Go were submitted voluntarily by players who opted into the feature and were subject to the applicable Terms of Service and Privacy Policy at the time,” the Niantic Spatial spokesperson told the Guardian.

Experts, however, noted that regular users may be unaware of how their data will be used when playing a game, which makes the use of civilian data for military purposes troubling. “While they may have disclaimers in their Ts&Cs, we know that most people don’t read vast legal documents when they want to play a video game,” Tom Sulston, head of policy for tech policy think tank Digital Rights Watch, said.

In February, Vantor was awarded a contract with the US Army worth up to $217m to provide terrain-based military training software.