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Pokemon Go is all the rage these days and doesn’t show any signs of slowing down. When developer Niantic isn’t shooting themselves in the foot, they’re receiving letters from like the one they recently received from the Governor of New York, urging them to keep sex offenders from playing the game.
The letter comes after reports of PokeStops and other important in-game locations like Gyms being less a half a block away from registered sex offenders. According to Governor Cuomo, he wants Niantic to effectively ban registered sex offenders on parole from playing the game and is offering cooperation from the city’s Sex Offenders Registry to provide emails, phone numbers, and whatever else they have on file — all information regularly shared with companies like Facebook, Apple, and Microsoft.
“Protecting New York’s children is priority number one and, as technology evolves, we must ensure these advances don’t become new avenues for dangerous predators to prey on new victims. These actions will provide safeguards for the players of these augmented reality games and help take one more tool away from those seeking to do harm to our children.”
-Governor Cuomo
So what about games outside of Pokemon Go? They’re included too. It seems the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision has a new condition for sex offender parolees that prohibits “downloading, accessing, or otherwise engaging in any internet enabled gaming activities.” The new mandate applies to nearly 3,000 people in New York currently on parole.
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