How to Share an ID Scan or Payslip Safely

Updated 27 October 2026 · by the My Gadgets team

Send only the pages and details the person actually needs, black out the rest in a way that cannot be undone, and stamp every copy with who it is for and when. A landlord checking your income needs to see your salary, not your bank account number; a gym checking your age does not need your passport number. Five minutes of preparation turns a document that could be misused for identity fraud into one that is useful only for the purpose you sent it for. Here is how, step by step.

Why does it matter what I send?

An ID scan or payslip sent by email ends up in inboxes, shared drives and document systems you will never see, often for years. If any of them leaks, a full copy of your passport, with your date of birth and document number, is exactly what someone needs to open accounts or take out loans in your name. A payslip adds your employer, salary, tax number and sometimes your bank details.

You can't control where the copy goes. You can control what is in it.

Step 1: Work out what they actually need

Ask, or read the request again. Typical examples:

Some organisations, such as banks, employers' payroll teams and immigration authorities, are required to see a complete, unaltered document. If the request comes from one of them, send what they ask for, through their secure upload, rather than editing it. Blacking out details is for the many others who only need a glance.

Step 2: Send only the pages that matter

A three-month bank statement for an address check can be one page. A twelve-page contract for "proof of employment" can be the signed first page.

• Keep only the pages you need with Remove Pages from PDF: choose Keep Pages (Remove Others) and type the page numbers.
• Or take a range out into its own file with Split PDF.

Step 3: Black out details properly

This is the step people get wrong. Drawing a black rectangle over text in a PDF editor often leaves the text underneath. The box is just another layer: anyone can select the text behind it, copy it, or delete the box. Several well-known leaks happened exactly this way.

The reliable way is to turn the page into a picture, cover the details in the picture, and only then make a PDF again:

For a photo or scan of an ID card

1. Open the image in Blur Image.
2. Under Where, choose Only areas I select, then drag over each detail to hide: the document number, the machine-readable lines at the bottom, the signature. On a phone, drag with your finger.
3. Under Effect, choose Solid black box. Don't use a light blur for text: weak blurring and pixelation have been reversed before. A solid box removes the pixels outright.
4. Download the PNG.

For a PDF, such as a payslip or bank statement

1. Turn the pages you are sending into images with PDF to Images: PNG at 2x keeps small print readable.
2. Black out the details in each image with Blur Image, as above.
3. Put the pages back together with Images to PDF.

The trade-off: the new PDF is made of pictures, so its text can no longer be selected or searched. That is the point: there is no hidden text left to recover. If the recipient needs selectable text, they need the unaltered document, and Step 1 applies.

Step 4: Mark every copy

A watermark saying who the copy is for makes it far less useful to anyone else, and tells you where it came from if it ever turns up somewhere it shouldn't.

Write the purpose, the recipient and the date, for example:

For ABC Lettings – rental application – 27/10/2026

• For a PDF, use Add Watermark to PDF: set the text, keep the opacity around 25–35 % so the document stays readable, and choose Center with 45° (Diagonal) so it crosses the page.
• For an image, use Add Watermark to Image with the Tiled preset, which repeats the text across the whole picture so it cannot simply be cropped off.

Put the watermark over the document, not in an empty margin.

Step 5: Send it the right way

• Use the recipient's own secure upload if they have one. It is usually better than email.
• If you must email it, send it to a named person rather than a general mailbox, and delete it from your Sent folder afterwards if you don't need the record.
• If you want it encrypted, Encrypt File seals the file with a password (AES-256). The recipient opens it with this site's Decrypt File, so tell them that, and send the password by a different route, such as a phone call or text message, never in the same email.
• Photos of ID cards also carry hidden metadata, sometimes including where they were taken. Converting or editing them as above removes it; for photos you send without editing, use Remove EXIF.

Every tool mentioned here works inside your browser. For documents like these, that matters: the unredacted original never leaves your device on the way to producing the copy you send.

A quick checklist before you press Send

• [ ] Only the pages they need.
• [ ] Numbers they don't need are covered by solid boxes, on a picture, not a PDF layer.
• [ ] Watermarked with recipient, purpose and date.
• [ ] Opened once and zoomed in to check nothing hidden is readable.
• [ ] Sent through their secure upload, or encrypted with the password sent separately.

Quick answers

Can I just cover the number with a sticky note before scanning? Yes, and it works: the number never enters the file. Check the scan afterwards for shadows that make the paper translucent.

Is it legal to black out parts of my ID? For your own copy sent to a private party, it is generally fine. Some organisations may refuse an altered copy and ask to see the original in person; that is their choice to make.

Should I send a photo or a scan? A flat scan from your phone's document scanner (Notes on iPhone, Google Drive on Android) is clearer and smaller than a photo, and easier to check.

How do I know a blacked-out PDF is really clean? Try to select text where the box is. If you followed the image route, there is no text to select at all.

What to do next

Cover what they don't need with Blur Image, mark the copy with Add Watermark to PDF, and send only the necessary pages with Remove Pages from PDF. If you are wondering whether to use an online converter for any of this, read whether it is safe to upload documents online.