This whole thing seems made up.
Also, some apps seem to do this with photos, asking for access, does anyone know if these apps also upload all of one's photos once the user grants permission on iOS?
That would eat up a lot of bandwidth. I suspect someone would notice it. An app could extract a lot of information from the metadata though, assuming it had access (I'm not sure how permissions on iOS work currently). It could also potentially run facial recognition algorithms locally (not sure how well that would work in practice though).
I guess I just wish we had more insight into what info companies take and how, permissions on iOS and Android seem to be getting more granular and yet still seem quite broad to me.