I am fully aware of what vpn services to use and not. I am not using Express VPN, I am simply doing research for a master thesis, when I came across these results from Express VPN. If you have any ideas or corrections, please let me know why a VPN provider would need to have access to these permissions.
Screenshot is from Exodus service, which let's you view what exactly perimissions and trackers each app uses. You can check out the results and the tool for yourself here: https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/reports/com.expressvpn.vpn/latest/
Not an endorsement of ExpressVPN, I've learned to avoid companies that sponsor on youtube. However, I believe you don't need the proprietary app to use the service, you could use a free software OpenVPN client such as this one.
They do offer support for OpenVPN although, unsurprisingly, they heavily push their proprietary client as the preferred way to use the service. This alone would be enough to discourage me from using it or recommending it.