September 29, 2011 –Bank of America began rolling out a person-to-person payment feature in its mobile banking app this week. But when users downloaded an update to the app that included the P2P feature, they were asked for permission to access their contact list without an explanation of why. In the app review section, many users expressed their unhappiness with Bank of America's seemingly out-of-the-blue request to peek into their address books. It turns out that the bank was simply providing an opt-in feature whereby, for their convenience, customers can click on a contact in their contact list rather than type in that person's information. BofA is not alone in offering P2P payments and in giving its Android app the ability to access a user's address book. Chase's app does the same thing. PayPal's Android app can not only read personal contact information, and it also accesses the user's calendar. Citi lets its app read and modify contact data stored on a customer's device.
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