+1 on this, I wrote many posts about how we should be able to access the cameras with permissions, just like you would on a smart-phone. Could have options for it to be only accessible for apps running on device, or option to allow the data to be sent to a PC over Link/AirLink etc. Or even some enterprise/developer mode which requires some manual steps to access this API and removes the concerns of users opting into this by accident etc.
I don't really see any real excuse now, we have the market flooded with iPhones and Android devices which both have native camera API's and I've never heard of a case where someone has developed an app that blackmailed a user or anything similar using their camera data.
