Tyler,
Explorer is doing nothing with your contacts. Unfortunately at the release of Android we shipped this version of Explorer on contacts permission was inadvertently requested along side other privileges we might need like access to the file system to download maps as well as access to the GPS to show your location on a map.
Android has improved their permissions management infrastructure quite a bit since we last shipped Explorer and at the 19.1 release of Explorer we will not be requesting this as Explorer does absolutely nothing with contacts. We will be in Beta of Explore Android 19.1.0 later this fall with a final release early in 2020.
