Mojave - Criteria for showing "App would like to access contacts"

I have a desktop application that when launched generates the message "App would like to access your Contacts" in v10.14.

This message box is new and did not appear in the previous OS versions.

The application does not need access to a user’s Contacts and is not expicitly doing anything to access contacts.

Is there something that the application is doing to generate this message? What is the criteria for showing this dialog?

Any guidance here would be helpful.