Why has the READ_PHONE_STATE permission been added?

Question

In the latest beta version I just published to the Play Store, I notice that the READ_PHONE_STATE has been added since the previous version.

I haven\'t

Answer 1

I eventually found this, which reports the same issue. One workaround is mentioned in Answer #3, which is to remove the permission "manually" (my assumption is that the permission is only required for very early Android versions, which is OK for me since my minSdk is 16):