OK, I could have been more precise in my wording. I meant that it monitor photos that you take with your phone camera not that it constantly monitors what the camera sees. I didn't intend to mislead and I think that's a reasonable interpretation.

I still think that this is unexpected behaviour. It belongs in the camera app, not the maps app. The expectation is that apps are sand-boxed and separate from each other.

I have anecdotal evidence from friends who don't normally care about issues like this. Yet they felt compelled enough to pro-actively share this with comments similar to "NO GOOGLE!", which suggests it's not just me.