Just cut the cable for the microphone?

There’s another problem with this because a camera with a mic cable cut would look from the outside exactly like a camera with mic cable intact, and maintenance is a thing, so eventually it’s bound to be replaced by a camera with a working mic either by mistake or “by mistake” on purpose. There’s a trust issue here since people who would be affected by the presence of a mic won’t be able to easily visually verify that it’s disabled.

It's often on the board as a MEMS microphone.

But yes I've done this with all my ring cameras, they were still the old type. One of them was a bitch to open up though (the indoor one IIRC)