> This seems highly unlikely to not alert someone as the camera / video / GPS icons would show up as being in use. You would need a privesc to dump the data fr

> This seems highly unlikely to not alert someone as the camera / video / GPS icons would show up as being in use. You would need a privesc to dump the data from other apps due to app sandboxing anyways. And once you have root, you can disable the GPS/video/camera indicators, since they are controlled by the OS. > I think people are not really overlooking, but the question is related to the remote enabling of GPS / Video / Audio interception. This kinda excludes random traffic stops or breaking into someone's house. Initial physical access is the poor man's way of enabling long-term remote access. > As such, "do significant vulnerability research on closed source hardware/software to find vulnerabilities across common baseband processors" seems like a way to achieve this. Go present a set of options to a government bureaucrat, and tell them: A. you can build a vulnerability research program for 7-8 figures, pray that your best researchers don't get poached by Google after you train them, and maybe get something useful in five years. B. you can buy a couple of existing browser exploits and privescs for 6-7 figures, enabling remote access. C. you can use your legal powers to break into the suspect's home/office and load monitoring software on their phone with physical access. They are going to pick B or C.