Why does Chase Bank need access to the contacts on my phone?
Why would a banking app need to be able to read the contacts on my phone?
Many believe Big Tech companies harvest your contacts to build a map of your life that they use to build a profile of you. Knowing who you are talking to and when tells Big Tech a lot about a person. That profile could form part of your “Social Score” and be used to control, brainwash, censor, or cancel you. Not good.
Let me back up and tell you how I discovered this info.
I have been looking at all the apps on my phone to see which ones are collecting data I do not think they need and only keeping the ones I feel comfortable with. First on my list was my Chase banking app.
First stop was Exodus, who do privacy audits for Android apps to see what they could tell me
Trackers
The good news is there was only one — but I must confess I feared the worst. Lets see what the tracker is:
The nice thing about Exodus is they provide a link to the Tracker website so you can learn more about it, let see what Matomo has to say for itself:
Open Source Software
Open Source Software is good because people can look at it and see exactly what it does. Of course, Chase could have modified the source code before using it.
Chase is getting my data — not Google
Being realistic, a company is going to want to get usage stats on its app. The problem is a lot of companies use Google Analytics for this and Google sucks that data up into its huge database to do who knows what with.
Matomo seems to understand the issues users have with Google and Privacy
Conclusion on the Chase Bank App and Trackers
From what I can see, I think this is better then I feared. Chase is getting usage data, but is not sharing it with all and sundry like they may be if they were using another tracker like Google Analytics.
Permissions
Exodus lists 34 permissions that Chase takes for itself when you install their app on your phone. Exodus say the ones with the red exclamation marks are the most concerning. So lets have a look and see if they are reasonable:
Locations
Chase probably uses these to prevent fraud — you do not want people stealing money from you account and Chase probably uses this info to try and protect you.
Camera
Chase lets you take photos of you checks and deposit them using your app instead of having to go to the bank to make the deposit. They probably need access to the camera for that.
Contacts & External Storage
These puzzled me. Why would Chase Bank need to read my Contacts? As I looked around the app, I saw they have a Paypal like service called Zelle where you can send money to friends. I am not thrilled about this, I wish Chase would make it clear that they are only taking the specific data they need for the specific contact you want to send money to and not using this permission to suck up your entire contact list and use it for other purposes.
I have no idea why Chase needs to access my SD Card and to not understand the “Phone State” permission well enough to comment.
Conclusion
To my untrained eye, the tracker and permissions used by Chase seem reasonable in the main and I decided to keep the Chase App on my phone.
Are you concerned about your Digital Freedom?
If you are reading this, you probably concerned about protecting your data from Big Tech and all the apps running on you phone. I hope from this discussion you can see what a wonderful free resource Exodus is in helping you make some more informed decisions.
And if you care about your Digital Freedom, make sure you check out this guide to help you win back your freedom from Big Tech tyranny
Conflict of Interest Disclosure
Writer and family members do not hold any financial interest in the businesses manufacturing, developing, and/or selling any of the products or services mentioned in this article. Nor are we compensated in any way e.g. commission or affiliate program if you decide to purchase these products or services.
