Something kind of eye-opening for me was that I recently found an Android setting to make my phone (a OnePlus 5T) vibrate whenever any app requests location data, and even with location access denied to everything, it still vibrates about once every ten or fifteen minutes. As an end user I'm helpless to know whether it's a normal function of the OS, or if I have malware, or if it's Google, or OnePlus, or the Chinese. I can only hope I'm a little fish caught up in someone's advertising scheme and I'm not being tracked by the FBI because I said the wrong mix of things online. (You know, because there's no way I'm getting rid of my smart phone.)
IMO this is a failing of Android that should be dealt with immediately. iOS has had a big red bar across the top of the screen for years when location or microphone is being accessed.
Google relies for a great deal on advertising and gathering user data, unlike Apple. On top of that they don't have tight control over who sells Android devices, nor do they appear interested in doing so. Sadly it doesn't look like they're interested in delivering better data protection for their users.
Google sells their own phones and could introduce hardware driven indicators next to the camera and microphones for when they are on if their goal was not to be evil.
It is a general problem that no one makes strong claims about indicators, so making a software driven camera led is not bad for a manufacturer's reputation.
