New York Bans Sex Offenders From Playing Pokémon Go

The governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, has put a restriction on registered sex offenders from playing the immensely popular Pokémon Go, which has taken the world by storm. The move is reportedly the latest in the long line of tracking methods levied on sex offenders to monitor their online activity in New York. The recent ban also especially aims to protect children, who make a large chunk of the Pokémon Go players with figures going up to 22 percent of the total playing population, from antisocial elements.

"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," Andrew Cuomo said. "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."

The New York state legislation has banned over 18,000 registered sex offenders from using about 40 different apps and social media sites, and now Pokémon Go has been added to the list. The decision to imply a ban on sex offenders from playing the game came when two New York lawmakers put in a request after observing high levels of Pokémon Goincentives near the residences of sex offenders, to ensure that PokeStops did not show up in such areas. In addition, the governor has also asked the publisher of the game for cooperation in curbing sex offenders from playing it.

Interestingly, as per reports, the move has met with its share of criticisms with civil rights lawyers pointing out that such types of limitations could be conflicting with the constitutional protection of freedom of assembly, in addition to being an overreach without any proof of any existing sexual or criminal activity by the banned sex offenders.