about your concern on asking kyc and data theft on your phone its not new anymore hundreds of app today are stealing your identity once you use your phone or pc and connecting to internet your identity is at risk anymore including your lovelife 
so if you are too concern about stealing your identity dont connect to internet simple,
so if you are too concern about stealing your identity dont connect to internet simple, Just because everyone do it doesn't make it right
do you think this team from Standford University with MBA, PhD degree are ruining their reputation just to build a shitty scam app?
Even some with doctoral degree (fake satoshi) has been proven as scammer. So it's not weird to see some people have such doubt or skepticism towards this project.
its too early to criticize a project in early phase of development if you read thoroughly the whitepaper you will understand what protocol they are proposing read gain https://minepi.com/white-paper recently they ask members of pi pioneers in chat about ico or in app ads to sustain the development of this project and instead of using a quick and easy money ico system they decided to earn organically via in app ads and I dont see any problems here
Critique always exist whether you like it or not.