How to upload a photo of your ID online safely
Before you upload a passport, make sure you know exactly who is asking for it.
In short
Upload ID only to a site or app you reached yourself — not through a link in a message — and preferably inside its own verification flow. Send a fresh scan cropped to the document, without location data, delete the extra shots afterwards, and keep your own copy somewhere safer than the camera roll.
Key takeaways
- Reach the site yourself rather than following the link that asked for your ID.
- A photo taken at home can carry your home’s location.
- Photos groups identity documents it recognises in Utilities.
Check who is asking
- Type the address yourself or open the company’s own app, rather than tapping a link in an email or text. For unexpected requests for personal information, Apple’s advice is to presume a scam and contact the company directly.
- Be wary of being asked to email or message an ID to a service that has its own app or account area. That is where an identity check belongs.
- Ask what the ID is for. Proving your age, opening an account and renting a flat do not call for the same documents.
Use a digital ID where it is accepted
In the United States, you can create a Digital ID in Apple Wallet from an unexpired U.S. passport. Select businesses accept it in person, in apps and online to check your identity or age. You choose what information is shared by default, rather than sending a picture of the whole document, and Apple says it can’t see when and where you use it.
Prepare the image
- Scan rather than snap. The Notes app and the Preview app can scan a document into a PDF, cropped to the page, with nothing of the room around it.
- If you send a photo, remove its location first. In Photos, open the photo’s details, tap Adjust Info, then Adjust Location, then No Location. Or, when sharing, tap Options and turn off Location.
- Check what else the file reveals. The photo metadata tool on this site shows a photo’s location, device and other fields, and downloads a copy without them — in your browser, without uploading anything.
- Upload only the pages and sides that are asked for.
Afterwards
- Delete the extra shots. Photos keeps deleted items in Recently Deleted for 30 days, so delete them there as well.
- Don’t leave the ID in your library by default. Photos can find photos by their content, including identity documents, and groups them in Utilities, where anyone browsing your unlocked phone can find them easily.
- Note where you uploaded what, so you know whom to contact if one of those services is ever breached.
Keeping your own copy
You will need the scan again. Kept in the camera roll, it syncs to every device signed in to your Apple Account when iCloud Photos is on. Latent keeps it in an encrypted vault instead — captured with the secure camera, so no copy ever reaches Photos — behind a pattern that is not your iPhone passcode.