A Flurry of Activity

Pokemon Go, who knew this fun app that is getting people off their couches and gaming chairs and out into the world would have the potential to cause so much harm? Not only in the physical harm - walking into lamp posts and potholes type of harm but also the malicious IT world type of harm.

If you want to read more about the technical side:

As I am a part of an organisation that provides advice and solutions around Mobile Security, our internal e-mails have gone crazy as the various technical and security people add their thoughts to the potential threat of this app and others - as it is not the only one that accesses information it shouldn't have access to.

As our people provide their valued opinions, I am told that the one that seems to have a voice of reason is arguing to keep the app internally as he has the highest score in the company. He spent the weekend hunting Pokemon in the sunshine and building up his score.

We at Mobile Mentor are busy writing updates to our customers on the potential harm of the app as Nintendo and Google work together to get a new version on the app store that does not require the same access to e-mail, contacts, photos and documents.

My children were wise in this matter as they seem to have two gmail accounts, one for real e-mail and one for spam - shop loyalty offers etc. They logged in under the second account which meant they were potentially protecting their information.

Maybe this new generation are wiser than we think, they also have 2 Facebook accounts, one for public facing - Parents, Grandparents, family friends etc and one under a fake name - this one if for stuff they don't want grown ups to see and they can be difficult to find.

 So you may not mind providing an unknown organisation having access to all your contacts, e-mails, documents and photos through gmail as you feel you have nothing to hide, but your employer may feel differently - very differently and they may well be checking devices now to see who is using the app.