Sex offenders in New York state will no longer be permitted to play Pokémon Go following new direction from the governor to the state’s correctional officers.
Andrew Cuomo issued the directive on Monday to ban the state’s 3,000 registered sex offenders from accessing and participating in the augmented reality game – that took the US by storm at the beginning of July.
Last week, it emerged that children were led to Pokémon characters placed in close proximity to homes of registered sex offenders in the state.
“Protecting New York’s children is priority number one and, as technology evolves, we must ensure these advances don’t become new avenues to prey on new victims,” Mr Cuomo said in a statement. “These actions will provide safeguards for the players of the augmented reality games and help take one more tool away from those seeking to do harm for our children.”
The governor also issued a letter to John Henke, chief executive of Niantic, the software developer behind the game, requesting the company’s assistance in disabling the abilities of sexual predators from participating in Pokémon Go.
