If you thought that people had their eyes glued to their smartphone screens all the time, then you might not have noticed, but Pokemon Go is all the hype right now. This mobile game applies augmented reality to superimpose little virtual creatures on real buildings, streets, even your own living room. So these days, you see people trying to catch them all, even in the Vatican

or a TV studio!

From Nintendo’s point of view, Pokemon Go is not only a very lucrative renewal of a media franchise that was already very successful in the 1990s, but also a way to collect massive amounts of data of the players. The location data alone provides the company with movement patterns that – in some cases – may show exactly when an individual was where at any time during the day. In this blog post by Bernard Marr on Forbes, he clearly warns that although such games may seem harmless, they hide the fact well that users are giving away their data far too easily without much further consideration. George Orwell’s dystopian view of the future in 1984 – Big Brother is watching you – has become a reality by now. With the only difference that Big Brother’s work is cut out for him.