Pokemon GO Addresses Security Concerns

Yesterday there was a bit of an uproar across the internet when it was revealed that if you used a Google account on an iOS for Pokemon GO, the app got full access to everything in your account, including private emails. Niantic Labs, the company behind Pokemon GO, quickly addressed the issue. Niantic Labs and The Pokemon Company International released a joint statement, reports Polygon. You can read the statement in full below:

We recently discovered that the Pokémon GO account creation process on iOS erroneously requests full access permission for the user's Google account. However, Pokémon GO only accesses basic Google profile information (specifically, your User ID and email address) and no other Google account information is or has been accessed or collected.

Once we became aware of this error, we began working on a client-side fix to request permission for only basic Google profile information, in line with the data that we actually access. Google has verified that no other information has been received or accessed by Pokémon GO or Niantic. Google will soon reduce Pokémon GO's permission to only the basic profile data that Pokémon GO needs, and users do not need to take any actions themselves.

The gist of that statement is that the app requesting full data access is a mistake, Niantic Labs only accesses basic data and they will fix the "full access" problem with the app shortly. Therefore, Pokemon GO users need not fear. The fix actually appears to already be in place at this point and Pokemon GO users just need to re-download the app for it to be in effect.

In addition to this, security engineer Ari Rubenstein made a post regarding Pokemon GO, where the findings were that even before the fix, Niantic labs actually couldn't access any user's gmail. However, there was a risk of people being able to log in as Pokemon GO users if their "security token" was exchanged for a certain thing. But according to Rubenstein, that risk is no longer an issue and the problem has been completely fixed.

It's a big relief to Pokemon GO fans that the issue is being addressed. How do you feel about the security issues? Do you accept it was an honest mistake or do you still feel unsettled?

Read: Pokemon Go Pub Crawls are Real and Happening All Over the World

Read: Cop Mistook A Late-Night Pokemon Go Meetup For A Drug Deal