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Re:Model Your Users: Algorithms Behind the Minuum Keyboard by buro9 on Friday January 24, 2014 @10:30AM (#7115311)
I emailed them just in case they didn't see the above, and their response is:

  We require network access in order to collect analytics on how the
  keyboard is used. This information is completely user anonymous
  and we only use it so we can improve the experience for our users.
  
  We request social contact information so that the app can import the
  names of your contacts into our dictionary locally on your phone.
  This information does not leave your phone. 
  
  We think it is of utmost importance to respect the privacy of our
  users and only request certain information to improve the user
  experience. For further information about privacy, please see:
  http://minuum.com/data/
  
  Please let us know if you have anymore questions,
Re:Model Your Users: Algorithms Behind the Minuum Keyboard by spaky on Friday January 24, 2014 @02:40PM (#7117373)
Minuum co-founder here:

Please check out our data collection policy at http://minuum.com/data/ . We actually wrote a fair amount of it ourselves to try and reduce the “legalese” aspect. Hopefully, as you suggest, we can work to increase transparence more in the future.

As someone below mention the key reason we introduced network access was to enable language packs.

We also collect some analytics, but it's limited to data which is inherently anonymous. We really want to build an amazing keyboard that people will want to use every day so it’s critical we be able to answer basic questions like “Is the keyboard installed?” and “Was it used today?”. Otherwise we couldn't validate our design decision.

As stated in our data collection policy, if we ever want to collect anonymized typing statistics or other data related to what you type, that would be strictly opt-in and we would be as transparent as possible about it.

And yes, as others mentioned, we only access contact information if you use the import contacts feature in the settings.