A quick summary: iOS has very coarse-grained controls for app permissions to the contact list, either allowing all access to data about every contact, including free-form text notes that could contain arbitrary sensitive information, or no contact list access at all. The App Store's policies controlling use of contact list data are too weak without technical enforcement. (It's also noted that Google has the same problem with Android and the Play Store, but the author argues that Apple is more hypocritical because of its public pro-privacy stance.) To correct the problem:

> the first step is obvious: Restrict [apps] from getting any information from users' lists beyond phone numbers and email addresses. The next step is redesigning the controls of the list to allow users to encrypt or decline to share certain contacts. The names in a contact list could be benign, or they could be revealing—a doctor's patients, a dealmaker's network, a journalist's sources.