As far as the older androids I'm talking about I'm pretty sure that they didn't have the camera open 24/7 because the battery drain would have been even higher(

As far as the older androids I'm talking about I'm pretty sure that they didn't have the camera open 24/7 because the battery drain would have been even higher( based on my perception when taking a lot of photos), plus the camera used to overheat so I would have noticed. What I'm saying is that they are probably datamining and processing something. Not sure what that would be, but android at least is pretty pervasive with it's app permissions and used to be even more so so it could be anything on the phone really.