How to Redact a Passport, ID Card, or Driver's License Before Sharing It
To redact a passport or ID document, black out the document number, date of birth, address and any other field the recipient doesn't need — and don't stop at the printed text. A passport's machine-readable zone and a driver's license's barcode both re-encode most of the same data as the visible page, so a redaction that only covers the front leaves it fully readable to anyone who scans the strip or the barcode. This guide covers what to redact, what those hidden zones actually contain, and how to do it without uploading a copy of your ID to a server.
Key takeaways
- Redact the document number, date of birth and address; keep only the name and photo if that's all the check requires.
- A passport's MRZ (the OCR strip at the bottom of the photo page) encodes your name, passport number, nationality, date of birth, sex and expiry date under the ICAO 9303 standard — redacting the printed number alone leaves that data in the strip.
- A US or Canadian driver's license carries the same data again in its PDF417 barcode, per AAMVA's card design standard — redact the barcode too if you're sharing the back of the card.
- The FTC's Consumer Sentinel Network logged close to 6.5 million fraud and identity-theft reports in 2024, with losses over $12.5 billion — a document number is enough to open new accounts in your name.
- A black box drawn over a PDF or image only hides the pixels underneath; SladdPDF's Secure mode rasterizes the page so the redacted data is actually destroyed, entirely in your browser.
Why you're being asked for a copy of your ID
Requests for a photo or scan of a passport, driver's license or national ID card show up constantly: a bank or payment provider running a know-your-customer check, a landlord verifying an applicant, a gig or marketplace platform confirming an account holder, an airline or visa office processing an application, a new employer completing onboarding. Some of these genuinely need to see the full, unredacted document — a bank's identity verification usually does. Many don't: a landlord confirming you're an adult with a valid ID rarely needs your document number, and a recruiter asking for "proof of ID" for a file rarely needs your home address.
The rule worth applying before you attach anything: ask what the recipient is actually checking, and redact everything else. If the answer is "we just need to confirm your name and that you're a real, currently-valid person," the document number, MRZ, barcode and any address field can go.
What to redact on a passport, ID card, or license
The right answer depends on what the recipient needs, but this table covers the common cases: a full KYC-style verification versus a lighter "just confirm who I am" share.
| Field | Full identity verification (bank, visa, employer) | Lightweight share (landlord, marketplace, "proof of ID") |
|---|---|---|
| Name | Keep | Keep |
| Photo | Keep | Keep |
| Document / passport / license number | Keep only if explicitly required | Redact |
| Date of birth | Keep only if the process needs age verification | Redact, or keep age range only |
| Home address | Redact unless the process specifically needs it | Redact |
| Nationality / sex / eye colour / height | Redact unless required | Redact |
| Signature | Keep only if the process compares signatures | Redact |
| MRZ strip (passport) or barcode (license/ID card) | Redact once the visible fields are captured; the recipient rarely needs the raw strip | Redact |
| Issuing authority, issue/expiry dates | Keep if validity needs confirming | Optional |
When in doubt, redact more rather than less, and ask the requester to confirm the minimum they actually need. A document number and date of birth are exactly the kind of pair that shows up together in identity-theft applications for credit, loans and government benefits.
The passport strip you probably forgot: the MRZ
Every modern passport has a machine-readable zone (MRZ) — the two or three lines of monospaced OCR characters at the bottom of the photo page, defined by the International Civil Aviation Organization's Doc 9303 standard. It exists so border-control scanners can read the holder's details without a human retyping them, and it packs in the same core identity data as the printed fields above it: name, passport number, nationality, date of birth, sex and expiry date, plus check digits that let software verify the data wasn't altered.
That's the trap: someone carefully blacks out the printed passport number in the middle of the page, then leaves the MRZ untouched at the bottom because it "just looks like a barcode-ish line of gibberish." It isn't gibberish — it's the same data, formatted for a scanner, and both software and a person who knows the format can read it directly off the strip. Redact the entire MRZ block along with the printed fields, not just the number.
The driver's license barcode holds the same data as the front
US and Canadian driver's licenses and ID cards carry a PDF417 barcode, almost always on the back of the card, built to the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators' (AAMVA) DL/ID Card Design Standard. It's the same idea as the passport's MRZ: a machine-readable copy of the cardholder's data — name, address, date of birth, license number, issue and expiry dates, and physical descriptors like height and eye colour — sitting alongside the printed version on the front.
Bars, retailers and age-verification apps scan this barcode specifically because it's faster and more reliable than reading the printed text. If you photograph or scan the back of your license along with the front, cropping or blacking out the printed number on the front does nothing to the barcode on the back — a scanner app reads it in under a second. Redact or simply omit the back of the card unless the recipient specifically needs the barcode.
Why an ID number is worth protecting
This isn't a hypothetical risk. The Federal Trade Commission's Consumer Sentinel Network — the database that collects fraud and identity-theft reports from consumers, state and federal agencies, and industry across the US — logged close to 6.5 million reports in 2024, with reported losses exceeding $12.5 billion, up roughly 25 percent from the year before. A government-issued document number, paired with a name, date of birth and address, is exactly the bundle of information used to open new credit accounts, file fraudulent tax returns, or pass identity checks as someone else.
None of this means you should refuse every request for an ID copy — plenty of them are legitimate and required by law, such as bank account opening or regulated financial onboarding. It means treating a photo of your passport or license the way you'd treat a photo of your credit card: fine to show the parts that are needed, not fine to hand over every field by default because attaching the whole scan was the path of least resistance.
A black box over a scan is not redaction
A rectangle drawn on top of a PDF or a photo in a slideshow tool, a Preview markup pass, or a phone's basic photo editor typically just adds a shape on top of the image — the pixels or text underneath are still there, and removing or nudging the shape reveals them again. For a PDF with a real text layer (rather than a scanned image), the danger is worse: the covered text can often be lifted out with a simple copy-paste, no image editing needed at all. We cover this failure mode in detail in why a black box is not redaction.
Real redaction either deletes the underlying text/data or flattens the page into a fresh image with nothing recoverable beneath the mark. That's what SladdPDF's Secure mode does: it rasterizes every page after you place your redactions, so the source content — including anything under the box — is gone, not hidden.
How to redact an ID document locally, step by step
An ID scan is close to the worst possible file to upload to a random "free online redaction" website — you'd be handing a full copy of your government identity document to a server you know nothing about, for the sake of covering a few fields. SladdPDF runs entirely in your browser: nothing is uploaded, the file is processed locally with JavaScript and WebAssembly, and it keeps working offline once the page has loaded.
- Load the scan or photo in your browser. Open sladdpdf.com and load the PDF of the ID. If it's a photo or scan with no text layer, Smart Detect can run local OCR to help locate text fields before you redact.
- Cover the ID number, not just the photo. Redact the passport or license number, date of birth, and address. Keep only what the recipient actually needs, such as your name and photo for a basic identity check.
- Redact the MRZ or barcode too. On a passport, draw a box over the full two- or three-line MRZ strip at the bottom of the photo page. On a driver's license or ID card, redact the PDF417 barcode on the back, not just the printed number on the front.
- Export in Secure mode. Choose Secure mode when exporting. It rasterizes each page to a flat image, so the text, layers and hidden objects underneath the redactions are destroyed and unrecoverable.
- Remove the metadata. Enable metadata removal on export so the Author and Title fields and the creation-tool trace are cleared before you send the file.
- Verify before sending. Open the exported PDF, try to select and copy text over the redacted areas, and zoom into the barcode or MRZ strip to confirm it's fully covered rather than just dimmed or blurred.
If you're new to PDF redaction generally, start with the complete guide on how to redact a PDF for free. For scanned or photographed IDs specifically, our guide to redacting a scanned PDF covers the OCR side in more detail.
This article is general guidance, not legal advice.
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Redact a PDF nowFrequently asked questions
What should I black out on a passport copy?
Redact the passport number and the machine-readable zone (MRZ) - the two lines of OCR text at the bottom of the photo page. The MRZ re-encodes your name, passport number, nationality, date of birth, sex and expiry date, so covering only the printed number leaves that same data readable in the strip. Keep your name and photo visible if the recipient needs to confirm who you are.
Is it safe to send a photo of my driver's license?
Only after redacting the license number, date of birth and address, and only for a purpose that actually requires it. If you're sending a scan that includes the back of the card, redact the PDF417 barcode as well - it encodes the same name, address, date of birth and license number as the front, under AAMVA's card design standard, so cropping the front alone doesn't remove the data.
Why do landlords, banks and gig platforms ask for an ID copy?
Banks and many financial platforms are legally required to verify who they're dealing with (know-your-customer checks); landlords and employers use ID copies to confirm identity and eligibility; gig and marketplace platforms use them for account verification and fraud prevention. Ask what they actually need to see - many of these checks only require confirming your name, photo and that the document is valid, not the full ID number.
Does covering a barcode or MRZ with a black box actually delete it?
Not if it's just a rectangle drawn over the image in a PDF viewer or slideshow tool - the pixels or text underneath are still in the file and can be revealed by removing the shape or, for a real text layer, by copy-paste. Real redaction deletes the underlying content or rasterizes the page to a flat image, which is what SladdPDF's Secure mode does.