is for iOS to limit access to the contacts database for all apps, so that an app must ask the user for explicit permission to access it. Apple already does this for location information. Yes, this solution is likely to break functionality for a wide swath of apps and it also brings up the earlier-mentioned problem of "alert fatigue," but neither of those issues should be considered deal-breakers when weighed against the potential privacy issues of unfettered access to contact information. As things stand today, any one of the over half a million iOS apps currently in the market can access your address book without your knowledge or permission. If and until Apple restricts access to private information on iOS, the best technical solution we have is vigilance. Perhaps an enterprising software developer can construct a "Man in the middle" program to automatically scan for address book data to speed up testing. In the meantime, if you have the technical prowess to examine the data sent by an iOS app, please let us know in the comments below and we'll update this article with any new information we can gather. We've reached out to Apple for comment, and we're still waiting to hear back on specific questions related to the matter. We'll update the post when and if we get word.