I’m pretty sure I’m becoming paranoid by things that bleep and bloop.

For example, I play Wizards Unite.
The player info page is mocked up to look like some sort of passport.   That’s nice and a bit creative.  In the upper left, there’s a place to set a picture — preferably one of the player — and there are tons of ways to optimize it.

For example, the player could have Snape’s oily hair, McGongall’s trademarked glasses, and a the iconic lightning scar.  For a fan, the way to virtually dress up like someone from the Wizarding World is pretty endless.  It’d be rare to choose the same options and, if someone did, it’s a simple matter to add or subtract something from the player portrait to make it unique again.

What bothers me is that this game is ran by Niantic.   Niantic is owned by Google and is partnered with Warner Brothers.    Google, much like Facebook and Apple, have admittedly had privacy violations and I’m sure there are many that have yet to be reported.

To play Wizards United, the GPS beacon has to be on all the time.   Tracking the player’s location is a central part of the gameplay.  In the next update, the game will (like Pokemon Go) track the player even when the game is off.    So, Google will know where we are, when, and how long we stay there.

Which, in a way, I guess I’m okay with since Google has been doing this since Ingress – of which I played.    They’ve been tracking me for a while, but in a way, I don’t see that much different from when I make a cell phone call. The call is pinged off the closest tower which provides a generalized location of where the user is.   —   This is why calling 911 on a cell phone still works – sort of mostly.

But facial recognition bothers me.  If the fluffy effects are removed, Google receives a close face picture of the player.  I think that’s a better profile than something from Facebook or other social media.  For the fluff effects to take effect, the player needs to hold still and be really close to the camera.   I’d wager that picture is more accurate than selfies taken from the side with background busyness and potentially other people.

And, should cell phones be listening to the players… which isn’t a far stretch since Siri and Alexa have been known to listen in to their owners … iPhones may do it, but Androids probably do in some way shape or form because they’re programed by Google.   I bet iPhones do it too, even if they won’t admit it.

Sometimes, players don’t play alone.    I haven’t seen this a lot with Wizards Unite (yet), but certainly with Pokemon Go.  All players are connected to the same system.  That means they know how long and how frequently people travel together, how far apart they live, ages, and genders.

Add all of that to their ability to track our search history, Google Earth, and knowing where we live…   It’s scary.

Google has just about everything it needs for everything.   They can provide tons of information to marketing, governmental agencies, and for their own shadowy agenda.

I can’t overlook that new wrinkle from China — the social credit system.  Google can tell when I jaywalk.    In the future, that could be a social credit deduction which means that I have to pay double the price for a gallon of gas.

All of this sounds absolutely crazy.   I know.  Why would companies want to deeply track an individual’s whereabouts 24/7?

… because they can?

Why players of Ingress, Po Go, and Wizards?
—    I see that as a natural progression.

In Ingress, it was just location.   Po Go became a bit more complex and started to experiment tracking people in groups as long as location.   Wizards is a bit lacking on the group thing (so far) but made a significant step in gaining someone’s picture for potential facial recognition purposes.  It’s less invasive than having the laptop or gaming console take a picture.

Again…  to what purpose or purposes?
Who knows.

It could be something as simple as an advertisement billboard changing its product to meet the age and social status of a passer-by.  Like I mentioned before… social credit.   Maybe Google or some other company will pass some sort of judgment by the company we keep and where we go.

I have no idea and this is probably just paranoia on my part.  After all, the Computer is my friend and happiness is becoming mandatory.

But, it just kind of connects.
And I can’t even logically assume that if this level of monitoring and control is real, that it wouldn’t be in my lifetime.     There’s too much going on right now and being placed into action, although mostly covertly, to think it’d take fifteen years or so to come to fruition.

Maybe five or less.

And tracking, invasion of privacy, and judgemental evaluation will be mostly accepted because it was started in a game where people just accepted it.   … the younger the better.

Again, just babbling in a ‘get off my lawn’ type of way.    I guess I’m feeling my years mixed with a general distrust of new technology, but I’ve foreshadowed stuff like this before.

I hope I’m wrong.