A few points I want to mention.
Excluding the "com.google.pixel.camera.services.PersistentApplication", those other system apps come from AOSP and thus are inspectable by GrapheneOS. This pixel camera service might come from AOSP as well, but I am not sure.
We need to put some base level of trust into GrapheneOS, at least, for us to be able to use it confidently. Assuming that those apps somehow need those permissions (location, network, camera, sms/phone etc.) for some kind of surveillance/data-collection purposes there are two scenarios:
- GrapheneOS is in on it: why would GrapheneOS even show that those apps have those permission, they could just hide it from the user interface or even better, use the settings app itself for surveillance as it runs constantly, has every permission etc.
- GrapheneOS "overlooked" it: in my opinion unlikely, as GrapheneOS maintains and merges any AOSP commits and Google is unlikely to install spyware into their own OS.
So why are we distrusting system apps from GrapheneOS having those permissions? We might as well distrust the whole OS – they could use the built-in apps (phone, messages, settings) for surveillance instead and hide it from the user.
I agree with OP's point, that we should be able to deny them these permissions, though. This is something I would like someone from the team to answer as well. Especially, since this is something new and the OS has worked flawlessly without these apps having undeniable rights to network/sms/phone etc.