2017 - Niantic Uses OpenStreetMap for Pokémon Go

Since Niantic began using OpenStreetMap as the Pokémon Go basemap , many Pokémon Go players have edited OSM in an attempt to improve their gameplay. Many players have made good-faith edits, such as adding buildings and roads that reflect reality on the ground, and the game helped increase the number of OSM editors.

On the other hand, there have also been many cases of Pokémon Go players adding spurious parks or other points of interest or deleting schools in an attempt to essentially tag for the renderer. This is, in fact, vandalism of OpenStreetMap. Pokémon Go players are strongly encouraged to improve the map but are expected to follow good practice like any other mappers. (source)