As someone who works in this space, the headline is a bit of a stretch. The overlap in the locations of Pokemon Go Player data and any active Drone heavy theaters of war is a tiny sliver (or zero?). The military contractor (Vantar/Maxar) in question basically admits so but just "reserves the right" to use the data which is the political battle line ala Claude and DoD. This is mostly an ideological battle.
Pokémon Go was released at the beginning of July 2016. A week later, the Air Force kicked off its Red Flag exercise in Nellis AFB outside of Vegas. For the several thousand active duty folks participating, this is a month-long TDY from their normal base to Vegas. The premise is a large-scale war simulation, and it encompasses essentially all major wartime functions. I was directly involved in supporting drone operations (including live strikes) during this exercise.
The thing that’s funny about your comment is that because Pokémon go was just launched a week prior, a huge percentage of the participants were playing it in their downtime between exercises. You have to understand: these are thousands of 20/30-somethings (and occasionally even teenagers), meeting back up with friends from all over the world in Vegas. On and off base, people are socializing, having fun, and playing games. While phones were limited to outside of SCIFs, most of the base had no such restrictions. I recall wandering around base at 2am with friends playing it.
What’s funny is the same was happening with our deployed friends as well at the same time. This was a game that all their friends back home were playing, and when deployed, you need all the morale you can get. There were technically OPSEC policies this all probably violated but this was before any blowback from Strava accidentally revealing military bases or other similar incidents, so there was no specific guidance or moratorium on it.
All this to say, I understand what you’re trying to arrive at via deduction, but I think your understanding of the world in this case may be a bit too limited to meaningfully speak to this. That said, is the headline sensationalist? Probably.