Guide · Identity documents

Scanning and sharing ID documents safely

Everyone ends up sharing ID copies — for SIM cards, hostels, verification, applications. The document is the same every time; what varies is how much control you keep over it. A few habits make the difference.

Make a clean scan once, properly

Photograph the card on a plain, contrasting surface in even light — no shadows across the text, no fingers over corners. A document scanner pass straightens the perspective and flattens lighting, and an ID card extractor cuts precisely at the card's boundary instead of leaving a table around it. For printed submissions, put front and back on one A4 page at true card size.

None of these steps touch the document's content. A legitimate copy shows the card exactly as issued — any tool or service that offers to "correct" a name, date or number on an ID is asking you to commit a crime, not a convenience.

Share the minimum

Before sending a copy, ask what the receiver actually needs. Aadhaar itself has an official answer: UIDAI offers a masked e-Aadhaar download that hides the first eight digits, and recommends it for most sharing. When you are working from your own scan instead, mask the digits yourself — you draw the box, you decide what stays visible, and the mask is flattened into the pixels so it cannot be peeled off later.

For documents that carry more than an ID number — bank statements, address proofs, application forms — permanent redaction works the same way: opaque boxes painted destructively into the image, with nothing recoverable underneath. Then open the download and zoom in on every box before sharing. Only you know all the places sensitive data appears.

Habits that keep control

• Write the purpose on physical photocopies — "For hostel verification, March 2026" across the copy, in pen. Reused copies are the classic misuse route.
• Strip metadata from phone photos of documents before sending; the metadata remover drops GPS location and device details.
• Send documents through the channel the organisation names, not personal chats with unknown agents.
• Keep your own originals organised so you never need to ask a third party for a copy of your own document.
• Delete document photos from your camera roll and chat galleries once submitted — they accumulate quietly.

FormReady processes documents temporarily, never stores them, and never uses them for anything beyond producing your download — the privacy page spells this out in full.