Potential impact of iPhone 3G camera removal?

well your best bet would be to get a different phone... cause one you open the phone to take out the camera which is attached to the motherboard and will probably cause issues once you remove it and you will be SOL since you just voided the warranty your best bet would be to A) just get another phone or B) get the iPhone but also get a cheap non-camera phone to use while at work and just swap your sim card.

Attempting to remove the camera will most likely cause internal damage to the phone. The simple solution would be to get a phone without a camera for work and use the iPhone outside of work.

Is this a personal or business phone?

I wouldn't get an iPhone if it's for business and they want to remove the camera. Physical modification will void the warranty.

There's few phones without a camera these days.

The only way of doing it I thought of was to paint the lens black, but again, bye bye warranty!

Would they be happy if you put it in a protective case with no camera hole?

I'm sorry that all the answers you got did NOT address the question.

Assuming you are NOT worried about voiding the warranty, the camera can be removed. If you search the web on "iphone camera removal" you can find links on how to do this yourself, or services that will do this for you.

They should be able to answer questions regarding software upgrades, but in my experience you should be fine. I would expect the OS to probe for the camera and if not their to carry on without it. Phone modules do go bad, so having the entire OS fail when a simple IF condition will cover the issue, seems unlikely.

Good luck.

Here are a couple links i found (what you want to do is not unusual).

http://www.transworldnews.com/NewsStory.aspx?id=63272&cat=12
http://www.iresq.com/iphone/detail.php?prodID=P011036