What to redact on an ID card copy, field by field

Someone asked for a copy of your ID. What should you redact on an ID card copy before you send it? Keep what the receiver needs to identify you, cover everything else, and mark the copy for who it’s for. This guide goes field by field, and shows how the free ID-copy preset in Dress Docs helps. It’s one part of sending an ID copy safely.

What the receiver needs from your ID

Ask first. To identify you, most receivers need your name, often your address and the card’s expiry date, and sometimes your date of birth. The data protection authority of North Rhine-Westphalia, in Germany, puts it plainly: as a rule, only first and last name, address and possibly the validity date are needed for identification. In its guidance on identity checks for data access requests, it adds that the date of birth matters only when two people could otherwise be confused (LDI NRW, in German).

Some checks need a full copy, so ask first. Banks and other businesses bound by anti-money-laundering rules must keep a full copy, and a redacted one fails their check. If that’s who is asking, read when a full ID copy is required first.

What to redact on an ID card copy: the usual fields

Everything the receiver didn’t ask for can go. On most ID cards, that usually means:

Document numbers. The card or serial number, and any access number printed on the card. They identify the document, not you.
Physical details. Height and eye color, where the card shows them.
Nationality, unless the receiver asked for it.
The photo, unless someone has to compare it with your face.
The machine-readable zone, the lines of letters, digits and < signs. They repeat your name, numbers and dates in a form a machine reads. The same goes for a passport: what to cover on a passport copy.

This list follows the LDI NRW guidance above. It is guidance, not a statute. The rule underneath is simpler: what the receiver needs decides what stays.

Personalausweis: the German ID card

In Germany, the ID card has its own rule. Under § 20(2) of the Personalausweisgesetz, only the holder, or someone with the holder’s consent, may copy the card. The copy must be clearly and permanently recognizable as a copy, and anyone other than the holder may not pass it on to third parties.

For a copy sent with a data access request, LDI NRW says you may, and should, black out the access and serial numbers, nationality, height, eye color, photo and machine-readable zone. Name, address and the validity date usually stay. In that case, you should also be told beforehand that you can black out the rest.

Use the ID-copy preset

In Dress Docs, open the photo or scan of your ID. The ID-copy preset shows which fields to cover; you decide what goes, field by field. It also marks the export as a copy, and warns you when a bank or anti-money-laundering check needs the full copy.

On export, each page becomes one flat image with your covers in it, so the covered fields are gone from the file. The hidden metadata goes too. The preset is free and needs no account. ID copies are always temporary: close or reload the page and the document is cleared. To learn the editor itself, start with how to redact a PDF in about 30 seconds.

Front and back

Many cards carry data on both sides. Check both. If the receiver only needs what’s on one side, send only that side. If they need both, open both images in Dress Docs and cover each one. Free keeps up to 3 files open at once, so the front and the back fit side by side.

Mark it as a copy

Add a watermark that says who the copy is for, why and when, so a forwarded copy shows where it came from. What to write, and the German rule behind it: how to watermark an ID copy.

On a phone, the free Dress Docs app covers details on photos of documents. Get the app, or open Dress Docs in your browser.