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/
It doesn't cost extra, though the IP changes often. You could however buy a dedicated IP, which supports PF and costs extra. I tried PIA in July and it worked well, but the IP changes were annoying when hosting my Minecraft server.
Use something like NoIP.