How to Scan a Passport or ID — and Share It Safely (2026)

Passports and ID cards are the documents most often copied — and the riskiest to share. Hotels, banks, visa offices, real-estate agents… everyone wants "a copy of your ID." But an ID photocopy in the wrong hands opens the door to identity theft. This guide covers scanning a passport/ID at good quality and — more importantly — sharing it safely by redacting sensitive fields.

Tips for scanning passports/IDs

Readability is critical for official documents:

• Avoid glare. ID cards and the passport photo page are glossy. Scan in soft, even light (not under direct light), and keep your phone's shadow off the document.
• Lay it flat. Open the passport photo page fully and flatten it; a curl breaks the MRZ (the machine-readable lines at the bottom).
• Keep all edges in frame. Auto edge detection finds the 4 corners; don't let them get cut off.
• Front and back. Both sides of an ID card; the identity (photo) page of a passport, plus visa pages if needed.

In DocuVault: green "+" → Scan Document → frame it → capture → for multiple pages tap "Add Page" → "Finish." The document enters your vault encrypted with AES-256 (on EU-based endpoints); OCR runs in the cloud to make it searchable.

The real issue: sharing your ID safely

Scanning a document is easy; controlling who sees what is hard. Your ID card may carry more data than necessary — national ID number, serial number, parents' names. Most places don't need all of it.

DocuVault's Secure Sharing feature is built for exactly this:

1. Automatic detection. Before you share, DocuVault detects sensitive fields like national ID, IBAN, signatures and faces.
2. You approve. You decide what gets redacted — human approval is required; the app never decides alone.
3. Permanent redaction. The redaction you approve is permanently burned into the shared copy (at the pixel level); your original stays intact.
4. Expiring secure link. Share the result via an expiring, revocable link; the recipient opens it in a browser without installing the app. A delivery receipt shows you when it was opened.

So the "I left an ID copy at the hotel and have no idea what happened to it" worry goes away.

Privacy and sharing IDs

IDs and passports are high-risk personal data. Things to know:

• You don't need consent to store/process your own ID (it's your data).
• Be careful when sharing someone else's ID (e.g. a family member); redact unnecessary fields.
• The app you use should not use your documents for AI training, and should not request an ad identifier (IDFA).
• If an organization asks for your ID, you have the right to ask why and how long they'll keep it.

Details: KVKK-compliant document storage guide.

Frequently asked questions

If I redact the ID number, does the document become invalid?

It depends on the recipient. Banks/official processes usually need the full ID; for hotels, rentals or memberships a redacted copy is often enough. Ask what's actually required.

Is the redaction really permanent, or reversible?

In the shared copy the redaction is burned permanently into the image — it is not a removable mask like drawing a line over text. Your original stays untouched in your vault.

Should I redact the passport MRZ too?

The MRZ encodes all the passport's identity data. Where only identity verification is needed and the photo page suffices, redacting the MRZ makes sense; for visa/border processes the full page is required.

Does scanning require internet?

Document capture happens on the device, but OCR, AI and creating the secure link run in the cloud, so internet is needed.

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Scanning your passport and ID matters, but sharing them under control matters more. With redaction + an expiring secure link, you decide who sees what. Related: merge PDFs on iPhone, Schengen visa checklist, and the document scanner guide.