How to share a copy of your ID card safely

Cover the document number, the machine-readable strip and any field the recipient does not need. Add a watermark naming the recipient, the purpose and the date. Send one file through a channel you control, and delete extra copies once the task is done.

This guide covers France, Germany, the UK and the US, as of September 2026. Rules differ by country and by who is asking. It is general information, not legal advice.

Who can legitimately ask for a copy of your ID?

A landlord asks when you apply for a flat. A bank asks when it opens an account, because anti-money-laundering law requires it. A website asks to prove your age or run a background check.

Not every request is fair. France's CNIL, the data protection authority, is clear on this point. A hotel may ask to see your ID to check your nationality. This often comes up when a foreign guest must fill in the police registration form. But the hotel never has the right to keep a copy of your ID.

The same logic runs the other way. When you ask a company for your own data, the CNIL says it should not demand an ID copy as a routine step. A customer number with your name is often enough. A copy is only justified when the company has what the CNIL calls a reasonable doubt about who you are.

What can you black out on an ID card?

Leave visible what proves who you are: your name, your photo and the card's validity date. Cover what the recipient does not need to decide. Germany's law on ID cards requires every copy to be marked clearly and permanently as a copy, so it can never pass as the original.

Germany's data protection authority for North Rhine-Westphalia is known as the LDI NRW. It says only your name, address and validity date are normally needed to prove who you are. Everything else may be covered, including the access and serial number, your nationality, height, eye colour, and even your photo. In practice, most recipients still want to see your name and photo together, to check the copy is really you.

Section 20 of the Personalausweisgesetz, the federal ID law, is clear on this. Every copy must be marked clearly and permanently as a copy, for example with the word Kopie. That way, it can never pass as a genuine card.

How do you add a purpose watermark?

A watermark is a short line of text placed over the image. It does not hide any data, but it ties the copy to one recipient and one use. Write it in three parts: who receives the copy, why, and the date. For example: Copy of Jane Example's ID, for Riverside Bank, account opening, 26 September 2026.

1. Save the ID as a PDF or an image, and keep the original file untouched.
2. Cover the fields you listed above with an opaque mask, not a see-through box.
3. Open a watermark tool, such as Filigrane Facile, run by the French state.
4. Type the recipient, the purpose and the date as the watermark text.
5. Download the marked copy and send only that file, never the untouched original.

Filigrane Facile is built by DossierFacile, the French state's digital rental-file team, and provided by the government without charge. The service adds this kind of watermark to a JPG, PNG or PDF. It states that once you download the marked file, the copy you uploaded is deleted right away and used for nothing else. Nothing about it is limited to French documents: it works on any photo or PDF, whatever country issued it.

How do you mask and check a scanned copy?

Work on a copy, never on the scan you plan to keep. Use a tool that removes the text or the pixels under the mask, not one that only draws a box on top. Then try to select or copy the text under each mask. If anything comes out, that field is not really covered.

A scanned or photographed ID can also be read this way. ONYRI Sanitize runs on-device OCR inside your browser. OCR is software that turns a picture into text. It then masks the document number and other values it detects, without uploading the file. It does not add a watermark, so add one by hand if you need it. It does not blur the photo either, but you can mask it by hand with the “Draw an area” tool before you send the copy.

• Only the fields the recipient asked for are visible.
• The watermark names the recipient, the purpose and the date.
• No text comes out when you try to select a masked field.
• The file goes out through a channel you control, not a public form.

What should you do after you send it?

Keep the original file: most tools cannot restore a masked value once it is gone. If the file name itself says something private, such as your full name and the word passport, rename it before you send it. Delete extra copies from your phone, your downloads folder and your email's sent items once the task is closed.

In the United States, the Federal Trade Commission gives clear advice on this. Give your Social Security number only when an organisation truly needs it, such as your bank or your employer. Ask what it will do with the number first. The FTC also recommends keeping ID documents in a safe place, and shredding old copies before you throw them out.

In the UK, the Information Commissioner's Office gives similar advice. Store documents such as a passport or a driving licence securely. Report any that go missing to the organisation that issued them, right away. The same habit works for digital copies: once a task is done, delete them from every device that holds one.

Frequently asked questions

Sources & references