Sex offenders in New York who are addicted to Pokémon GO just got some bad news from Governor Andrew Cuomo who has asked the game’s developers to help ban players from the state’s sex offenders list.
The governor takes particular issue with the game’s “PokéStops” that can be equipped with lures to attract pokémon as well as other players to a certain spot. Cuomo believes that sexual predators will use these spots as a way to lure in children, so he’s demanding the makers add extra protections.
“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,” Governor Cuomo said in a statement today. “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.”
New York currently requires all sex offenders to register and update all email accounts, screen names and other internet identifiers with the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services. The state then sends that information to more than two-dozen social networking sites every week.
The governor wants to add Niantic Labs to the list of social networking companies. It’s unclear if Niantic Labs will implement the ban requested by Cuomo, or how it would even be enforced considering determined sex offenders could just create a separate account anonymously.
