Sorry to say it; but lawsuits are the only solution.

It would take a very brave and honest politician who doesn’t pander for votes to do what’s right. They, unfortunately, don’t exist.

We are. I strongly encourage you to become involved in FAC, Bruce.

http://patch.com/massachusetts/beaconhill/bill-would-ban-massachusetts-sex-offenders-playing-pokmon-go

Just wanted to add an update. A USA Today article reports that Cuomo sent the order to the corrections department. Here is a quote:

“Cuomo’s order calls for the state corrections agency to install a new parole condition for sex offenders under state supervision to prohibit them ‘downloading, accessing, or otherwise engaging in any Internet enabled gaming activities, including Pokémon Go.'”

These days, that pretty much rules out video gaming of any sort for probationers in NY. Thankfully, this will make the world much safer for 35 yr old males, which are the largest consumers of video games, and obviously the most likely to be victimized by someone on the registry.

I do indeed believe it, sadly. Although I’m sure there must be more pressing issues on a state govenor’s to-do list.

What really irks me about this whole thing though is that nebulous clause that they love to put in “any similar app that is likely to appear in the future.” At the surface level only, this is hard to abide by, since it is such a subjective statement, but the deeper implications are terrifying. They are legislating a ban for a certain class of citizen on technology that hasn’t been created yet. I’ll let you creative thinkers carry that thought forward.

And just to broaden the net of your thinking, keep in mind that AR programs have been out for a few years already (Niantic ,the developer of PokemonGO, was hired because they already had experience developing an AR game. The infrastructure of PokemonGO was based on their work on that previous game), and is set to be a major tech trend, especially in light of the success of the pokemon game. They have now introduced the tech to a large enough audience that (sarcasm)people worry about sex offenders using it (/sarcasm) and that is just the first step towards ubiquity. Here is an article that has some ideas that you might not have considered for AR now that it is going mainstream:

https://www.brookings.edu/2016/07/22/why-pokemon-gos-technology-is-no-fad/

So it scares me deeply that legislators are wanting to ban registrants from things that don’t exist, especially when those things are anticipated to be as commonplace as facebook is today….oh wait, I can’t use that either, but at least they waited until it existed to ban me from it.

Edited – thanks!