At Niantic, we strive to create a friendly and fair gameplay experience for all players. As part of that commitment, we enforce a three-strike policy against cheating. This policy provides offenders with a series of disciplinary actions that gradually increase in severity and multiple opportunities to change their behavior. If offenders reform their ways, they are welcomed back into the game. However, if offenders continue cheating, they will be permanently removed from the game in accordance with the Niantic Terms of Service and Player Guidelines.

For the purposes of this policy, we define cheating as behaviors that violate the Niantic Terms of Service and Player Guidelines, such as falsifying location (GPS location spoofing) and accessing Ingress clients or backends in an unauthorized manner, including through the use of third-party software or add-ons.

A strike serves as a warning. Everyone makes mistakes, so we’ve created this policy to allow offenders to learn from their mistakes and change their ways. If you have been issued a strike, don’t ignore it. Take action to ensure that you do not commit any further transgressions. If you believe that your account was compromised or hacked, please see his article for tips on securing your account.

Keep in mind that offenders are not always offered three strikes. Some misbehaviors may result in immediate account termination without prior warning. Disciplinary strikes, when they occur, will escalate as follows:

If this strike is issued, you will see a warning message in the Ingress app informing you that we have detected a violation on your account. You must acknowledge this warning in the Scanner each time you access Ingress before you can continue playing Ingress. This warning will also prevent you from communicating with other Agents via COMM during this period.

This will last for approximately 7 days. After this period, your gameplay experience and access to COMM will be fully restored. Any further violations will result in additional escalated punishments. You will not receive another warning.

If your account is issued a second strike, you will temporarily lose access to your Ingress account. When attempting to log into the Ingress app, you’ll be presented with a message stating that your account is suspended. You will not be able to bypass this message.

This will last for approximately 30 days. After that period, you will need to acknowledge a warning for your account access to be restored. After the suspension, further violations will result in permanent account termination. You will not receive another warning or suspension.

If you receive the first and second strikes and continue to violate the Niantic Terms of Service or Ingress Community Guidelines, your account will be permanently terminated. Learn more about some of the reasons that your account can be terminated.

This is a permanent ban.

If you believe your account has been terminated in error, you will have the opportunity to appeal this decision. We’ll respond to your appeal after a complete investigation of your account and the situation.

Please note that due to the high level of accuracy in our detection systems, very few terminations are ever overturned.

To submit an appeal, please visit our Help Center article linked here and click the “I Understand” button at the bottom of the article.