How to migrate to a zero-permission strategy, boost user trust, and write production-grade Kotlin code for the system contact picker. For over a decade, the standard for obtaining a phone number on Android was to add  READ_CONTACTS  to your Manifest, request a "Dangerous Permission," and query the entire database. But the era of broad data harvesting is over. Modern  Android permissions best practices  favor  system-provided pickers . Just as the Photo Picker replaced broad storage access, using the  Android contact picker  allows your app to get exactly what it needs — and nothing more. ⚡ TL;DR Avoid  READ_CONTACTS  unless you are building a Dialer or a Backup app. Use  ActivityResultContracts.PickContact()  to delegate selection to the OS. Resolve the  CONTACT_ID  explicitly from the returned URI before querying. Cache data immediately , as URI access is short-lived and not guaranteed to persist. 🧠 Why This Matter...