Clubhouse no longer asks for access to phone contacts for invitations

Audio chat app Clubhouse is getting an update that will no longer ask for access to users’ contacts to send friends invites. This was previously necessary to invite others for an audio conversation.

Clubhouse reports on Twitter, among other things that it will be possible to send invitations by directly entering a friend’s phone number. This means that it is no longer necessary to give the app access to the contacts. Jane Manchun Wong, who more often discovers unreleased features in the code of social media apps, says that Clubhouse has indicated in an explanation that it is also possible to approach Clubhouse with the request to have previously uploaded contacts removed from the servers. This removal option would also be built directly into the app at a later date.

With this step, the audio chat app is responding to previous privacy concerns. The app can be downloaded for everyone, but creating an account is only possible at the invitation of another user. By whom someone is invited, will remain visible on an account. In addition, Barry Collins previously reported on Forbes that it appears that Clubhouse is creating profiles of people who are not yet members. He was given suggestions to invite friends based on his contact list, in order of the number of friends they already had on Clubhouse. So the app used their mobile numbers to check how often those numbers appeared in the contacts of other Clubhouse members. That would be in conflict with, for example, European privacy rules.

Clubhouse is an app from Alpha Exploration, a company of founders Paul Davison and Rohan Seth. The audio chat app is growing rapidly and makes it possible to talk to acquaintances and strangers in Rooms via audio only. These Rooms can be about different topics. By default, a Room contains one or more speakers, but the moderator of a Room can also add speakers. There are no built-in tools to record conversations. A transcription function is also missing. In addition, the conversations in the app are live and therefore cannot be listened back, although there are also plenty of conversations that are not private and can be listened back on other platforms.