Guides on Anonymize my ID — share your ID, not your identity

How to send a copy of your passport safely

Wed, 01 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Sooner or later, someone asks for “a copy of your passport.” A hotel at check-in, a car-rental desk, a visa application, a new employer, a bank. Most people do the obvious thing: snap a photo and send the whole page. That single image contains almost everything needed to impersonate you — and you have just handed it to a stranger’s inbox, where it can be stored, forwarded or leaked without you ever knowing.

How to redact a passport or ID card (and what to hide)

Tue, 30 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Redacting a document sounds technical, but it comes down to one idea: cover the fields a stranger could use to be you, and keep only the fields that prove you are you to the person asking. Get that split right and a copy of your passport or ID becomes almost useless to a fraudster while still doing its job.

Cover before sharing
Usually safe to leave visible

A passport data page, field by field. The same split applies to an ID card — only the layout changes.

What to hide

These are the fields that do the damage if they leak. Cover every one of them:

How to watermark a copy of your passport or ID

Tue, 28 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Redaction is the step everyone thinks of first, and rightly so. But redaction only decides what a copy shows. A watermark decides what that copy is worth to whoever ends up holding it — and it is the difference between a document that can quietly be reused somewhere else and one that obviously cannot.

What a watermark actually does

It does not hide anything. Its job is to bind the copy to a single context. A passport copy with your name and photo visible is still, in principle, usable by someone else to support a claim about who they are. The same copy with “For Acme Ltd onboarding — 28 July 2026” repeated across it is:

What is the MRZ on a passport or ID card, and why hide it?

Mon, 20 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Look at the bottom of your passport’s photo page, or the back of a national ID card, and you will see two or three lines of capital letters, numbers and < characters that look like a typo. That is the MRZ — the machine-readable zone — and it is the part of the document every one of our guides tells you to cover before sharing a copy. Here is what it actually is.

When redacting your ID won't work

Fri, 07 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Most advice about redacting ID documents is written as if it always helps. It does not, and knowing exactly where the line falls is more useful than any redaction technique.

The four cases where it does not work

1. Banks and anything else under anti-money-laundering rules. Opening or keeping an account, a payment institution, a crypto exchange, an insurer, a notary. The obligation to capture the complete document sits on the institution; Germany writes it out explicitly in § 8 of the Geldwäschegesetz. See you cannot redact your ID for a bank.

Can someone steal your identity from an ID photo?

Mon, 20 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Not from any photo, though, and not through some abstract “hacking.” It comes down to a handful of fields — and once you know which ones, the risk is straightforward to manage.

What specifically makes a photo dangerous

Fraud built on a stolen identity usually needs to answer questions a system asks to “prove” you are who you claim to be: your document number, your date of birth, sometimes a signature to match. A single clear photo of a passport or ID data page contains all of it, in a form that can be copied perfectly and reused indefinitely. The machine-readable zone makes this worse, not better — it repeats the same data in a format built for machines to read automatically, at scale.

Blurring your ID yourself vs using a dedicated app

Mon, 20 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Your phone already has a markup tool. Draw a black box or a blur over your passport number, and it feels done. Mostly, it is — but there are a few specific ways this falls short of what a copy meant to leave your hands should actually protect.

What manual editing gets right

Covering the obvious field — usually the document number — with a black box or a heavy scribble stops a casual glance from reading it. For low-stakes situations where you trust exactly who’s receiving the image and it’s staying with them, that’s often genuinely enough.

Redacting a Spanish DNI vs a passport: what's different

Mon, 20 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Most of our guides talk about passports because the risk and the fix are the same worldwide. If you’re in Spain, though, you’re just as likely to be asked for your DNI — and it’s laid out differently enough that it’s worth spelling out where the sensitive fields actually sit.

The passport: one page, everything together

A passport’s data page puts your photo, name, document number, dates and the machine-readable zone all in one place. Redacting it means covering several fields on a single image.

A marketplace buyer wants to see your ID. Say no.

Fri, 07 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

You list a sofa, a phone, a coat. A buyer messages, friendly and fast, and somewhere in the third or fourth message: “Can you send a photo of your ID? Just for verification before I pay.”

The answer is no, and it is worth understanding why it is always no.

Nothing in a private sale needs your document

Work through what actually has to happen for the sale to complete:

A flatshare or roommate wants your ID before viewing

Fri, 07 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

You reply to a room advert. The response is quick and friendly, and before any mention of a viewing: “Can you send a copy of your ID and a holding deposit so I can take the room off the market?”

That is not referencing. That is the opening of a well-worn scam, and the sequence is what gives it away.

The order is the signal

A genuine flatshare runs like this:

A dating match wants you to "get verified". Don't.

Fri, 07 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

It starts well. The conversation is easy, they seem keen to meet, and then: “Before we meet, could you get verified on this site? I’ve done it — it’s just a safety thing.”

There is no such site. There has never been such a site. The category itself is the fraud.

Why “cross-app verification” cannot exist

Think about what such a service would need: an agreement with every dating app to write badges into their profiles, and a reason for you to trust it with a document. Neither exists. The apps run their own verification precisely because they are the only ones who can attach the result to a profile.

A freelance client wants a copy of your ID

Fri, 07 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Onboarding a new client, and buried in the vendor pack: “Please attach a copy of your passport or national ID.” It is a normal enough request. It is also one where almost nothing they need is actually on the document.

What a client is really confirming

That the person sending the invoice is the person they hired. That is your name and your photo, and it is the whole of it.

Instagram wants your ID to recover your account

Fri, 07 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Your account is gone. The email on it has been changed, the phone number too, and the only route left in the help pages ends with: “Upload a photo of your identity document.”

This one is genuinely real, which makes it unusual on this site — and makes the fake version unusually effective.

Why recovery is the exception

Most of the requests in these guides come from someone who could have asked for less. Account recovery is different: when a takeover has replaced every other proof you had, an identity document is one of the few remaining ways to show that the account is yours. The platform is not being lazy. It is out of options.

Is it safe to send an Airbnb host a copy of your ID?

Tue, 28 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Short-term rentals collapse two things people usually keep separate: a platform with verification systems and support, and an individual host with a phone and a chat window. When the ID request arrives, it matters a great deal which of those two is actually asking.

The platform has already done this

Airbnb and comparable platforms run identity verification as part of the account, precisely because handing documents around between strangers does not scale safely. When that check happens, the document goes into the platform’s system — not into a person’s camera roll.

Is it safe to give a landlord a copy of your ID?

Mon, 20 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

A letting agent emails after a viewing: “Please send a copy of your passport or ID to start referencing.” It is one of the most common requests in renting — and one of the easiest to comply with in a way that still protects you.

Why landlords and letting agents ask

Referencing exists to confirm you are who you say you are, match your income and history to your application, and reduce fraud on both sides. In many places landlords or agents are also expected to carry out some form of identity or right-to-reside check before signing a tenancy. None of that requires them to hold a complete, unprotected scan of your passport or national ID sitting in an inbox or a filing cabinet — it requires proof that matches your name, photo and application.

Is it safe to send a selfie holding your ID?

Sat, 01 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

At some point a request lands that feels different from the usual ask for a document copy: send a photo of yourself holding your ID up next to your face. Sometimes with a sheet of paper, today’s date written on it. It is common enough that it feels routine — and that is exactly why it works as a scam. The answer is not that verification selfies are wrong. It is that the legitimate ones almost never arrive the way this request did.

Is it safe to send your ID over WhatsApp or email?

Sun, 28 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

It is the path of least resistance: a landlord, a recruiter or a rental host asks for your ID, and you send a quick photo over WhatsApp or email. Done in seconds. The problem is that both tools were built to deliver images, not to protect them — and once your document arrives, it takes on a life of its own.

What happens to the image after you send it

The moment your passport or ID photo leaves your phone, copies start multiplying in places you do not control:

Car rental ID copy: what you can't redact

Mon, 20 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

At the rental counter, alongside your licence, the agent asks for “an ID or your passport too.” It’s routine at most desks — and, like every other version of this request, worth handing over deliberately rather than automatically.

Why rental desks ask for more than your licence

Your driving licence proves you’re entitled to drive; it doesn’t always carry your legal name the way your passport or national ID does, which is what the rental agreement, the security deposit and the insurance are actually written against. Many desks photocopy both documents as standard practice — particularly for visitors renting on a foreign licence, where matching the two matters more.

Can a company legally keep a copy of your ID?

Tue, 28 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

“We need a copy of your ID for our records.” It is such a routine sentence that most people never ask the obvious follow-up: for which records, and for how long? In the EU, those two questions have actual legal weight behind them.

The question is not “can they ask” — it is “why, and for how long”

A business is generally entitled to satisfy itself that you are who you say you are. What it is not automatically entitled to do is keep a permanent, unedited image of the document that proves it. Those are two different things, and the gap between them is where most over-collection happens: it is simply easier to photograph the whole page than to record the one detail that was actually needed.

You already sent an unredacted ID copy. What now?

Tue, 28 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Almost everyone has done it at least once: a request came in, it looked routine, and a full photo of a passport or ID card went out before there was time to think about it. If you are reading this shortly afterwards, the useful thing to know is that this is a manageable situation with a clear order of operations — and that the worst response is either panic or doing nothing.

Hotel wants a passport copy: what you can and can't redact

Mon, 29 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

You arrive at the front desk and the receptionist asks for your passport “to make a copy.” A lot of privacy advice will tell you to hand over a redacted one. For a European hotel that advice is mostly wrong, and following it will get you sent back to the desk.

The honest version: registration law needs the number

In many countries, accommodation providers are legally required to register guests and file certain identity details with the police. Spain is the strictest well-documented example: under Royal Decree 933/2021, in force for hotels, short-term rentals and campsites since 2 December 2024, the property must collect and transmit — among other fields — the document type and number, the date of birth, the nationality and, for a Spanish DNI, the support number.

New employer wants your ID: what you can't redact

Mon, 20 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

A job offer arrives, and with it: “Please attach a copy of your passport or ID.” The useful thing to notice is that this is almost never one request. It is a statutory check bundled together with a handful of administrative habits, and those two halves deserve opposite answers.

The half you cannot redact

Where an employer is running a statutory identity or right-to-work check, the law generally requires them to keep a copy of exactly what they were shown. In the UK, a manual right-to-work check requires copying the pages carrying the photograph, date of birth, expiry date, signature and any endorsement showing permission to work — the standard the Home Office applies is that the copy must let them see precisely what the employer saw on the date of the check. A redacted copy does not meet it.

You cannot redact your ID for a bank — and shouldn't try

Mon, 20 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This site exists to help you redact documents, so here is the honest boundary of that: for a bank, redaction is the wrong tool, and using it will not work.

Why the full document, and no less

Opening or maintaining an account is a regulated identity check — KYC, part of anti-money-laundering regulation. The obligation sits on the institution, not on you, and in several jurisdictions it is written as a duty to take a complete copy. Germany is the clearest: § 8 of the Geldwäschegesetz requires the obliged entity to make a complete copy or complete digital record of the identity document.

What to redact on a photo of your driving licence

Mon, 10 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Nobody photographs their passport to sell a bicycle. People photograph their driving licence for almost anything — a car hire booking, a car sharing signup, a private car sale, an insurance quote, a courier platform’s onboarding chat, a friend of a friend who wants to borrow the van. The licence feels like the casual one, the ID you carry rather than the ID you lock away.

It is not. Depending on where it was issued, a licence photo can give away more than a passport data page does.

Why a black box drawn over a PDF is not redaction

Mon, 10 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Everyone has done this at least once. A PDF needs to be shared, something on it should not be, so you draw a black rectangle over it in Preview, or highlight it in black in Word, or scribble over it with your phone’s markup pen. It looks right on screen. That is precisely the problem: the file looks correct while being completely unredacted, which is why this is the most repeated document-security failure there is.

What a photo of your ID gives away besides the ID

Mon, 10 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

You already know that a passport data page shows your document number, date of birth and signature — that is the part everybody weighs up before hitting send. What almost nobody weighs up is that a photo is a file, and files carry a second set of data that nothing on screen reveals.

What is actually inside the file

Digital cameras and phones write structured metadata into the image using Exif, the Exchangeable image file format standardised as CIPA DC-008. A typical smartphone photo carries:

A crypto exchange wants your ID and a selfie

Mon, 10 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Almost every other page on this site tells you to cover fields before you send a document. This one does the opposite, and it is worth being blunt about why: if the exchange is licensed, send the complete document, unredacted, and do not watermark it.

Why a licensed exchange needs the whole document

A crypto exchange operating in the EU is no longer an unregulated business. Regulation (EU) 2023/1114 — MiCA — requires a crypto-asset service provider to be authorised by a national competent authority, and authorisation drags the firm into the anti-money-laundering framework alongside banks: the 4th and 5th AML Directives today, and the directly applicable AML Regulation (EU) 2024/1624 from 10 July 2027.

A mobile network or utility wants a copy of your ID

Mon, 10 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

A mobile operator asks for a passport scan before it will activate a SIM. An energy supplier asks for the same before it will put the meter in your name. The two requests look identical, and in law they are almost never the same thing — which is why the honest answer here starts with a question about your country rather than a technique.

Is a copy of your ID actually required to get a SIM?

In some places the operator genuinely has no choice about identifying you.

An insurer wants a copy of your ID for a claim

Mon, 10 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Two requests that look identical are not. “Please send a copy of your ID” from a life insurer and the same sentence from the person handling your stolen-bicycle claim sit on opposite sides of a legal line, and the right answer is different in each case.

Which insurers are legally obliged to see the whole document?

The anti-money-laundering framework does not cover insurance as a whole. It covers life assurance and investment-linked products, and stops there. Directive (EU) 2015/849 defines a financial institution to include an insurance undertaking in so far as it carries out life assurance activities. The UK’s Money Laundering Regulations 2017 draw the same boundary, catching an insurer only when it is “carrying out or effecting any contract of long-term insurance”.

Is it safe to keep a photo of your ID on your phone?

Thu, 20 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

You almost certainly have one. A photo of your passport data page, taken before a trip. A scan of your ID card from the last time an agency asked. A picture of your driving licence you took at a car hire desk two years ago and never thought about again.

Keeping a copy is not the mistake. It is genuinely useful — you need your document number for a visa form, a booking reference, an insurance claim. The mistake is almost always where it is kept, and for most people that is the camera roll.