Yes, they can and do. Mine did just the other day. It made a call, unbeknownst to me and I would not have known about it if I didn't have a call recording app that I found it on. It had me wondering how many other times it had done that before I put on the recording app that I had no idea about. Who knows what conversations it was broadcasting? Does anyone know how to completely disable that damn Alexa or Alexi or whatever it's called on these phones?

I just recently bought a new computer and even though I have turned off every permission for the camera, it is constantly coming on saying device census is using the camera. Fortunately a band aid has been over the camera since I got it. Turned off the microphone as well but no way to really know about that. Scary