“New York State is clamping down on sex offenders on parole playing Pokémon GO,” Don Reisinger reports for Fortune. “Governor Andrew Cuomo issued an edict on Monday to the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) to stop any sex offender currently on parole to immediately stop playing Pokémon Go and ‘similar’ but unidentified games. The directive applies to nearly 3,000 Level One, Two, and Three sex offenders currently on parole, according to the governor’s office.”
“The Governor’s move comes just days after New York State Senators Jeffrey Klein and Diane Savino issued a report called ‘Protecting Our Children: How Pokémon Go and Augmented Reality Games Expose Children To Sex Offenders,'” Reisinger reports. “The report was based on investigations that discovered sex offenders were using Pokémon Go to lure children to locations ‘in close proximity to, or even at, sex offender residences,’ the governor’s office says.”
“In addition to ensuring all sex offenders are off Pokémon Go, Governor Cuomo also issued a letter to Niantic Labs, the game’s developer, informing it of his decision and providing the latest list of sex offenders in hopes the developer will ban sex offenders,” Reisinger reports. “The governor has also directed the state’s criminal justice arm to contact Apple and Google ‘to inform them of these public safety concerns and work with them to enhance user safety.'””
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: We understand the sentiment, if not the practicalities of enforcement.