Same error here. You're reading a meaning into the undefined phrase "sensitive area" from the abstract that doesn't seem consistent with that term's use elsewhere in the patent. But if you grep "sensitive" and look at the other uses it seems to mean primarily (a) places where light or sound would annoy or frustrate, (b) situations like wanting to control EMF levels in a hospital or airplane to avoid adverse effects (c) security issues related to "enterprise" applications.

There's actually a REASON we can know that this patent isn't trying to cover the specific case of turning off cameras in places where The Man doesn't want us to have that capability. The reason is: somebody else (not Apple) had ALREADY previously patented that explicit use case.

This patent is about adjusting general system settings, especially ringer volume, display brightness, and communications settings, in a way appropriate to the venue. For instance, pairing bluetooth when you get in your car and then turning that feature off again when you get out of your car. The vast majority of it really shouldn't be patentable because it's too obvious to any practitioner in the field. The general thrust of it is NOT about preventing phone users from photographing the police and it's not clear anything in THIS patent would even make it easier for the police to have that capability. (You have to do a fair amount of reading between the lines to even make that connection.)

In short: the original article is still linkbait.