How to scan an ID or passport on iPhone, and where the scan should go

Three apps that scan on iPhone

You don’t need to download anything to scan. Three apps that come with the iPhone do it, and each saves the scan as a PDF in its own place, not in your photo library (iPhone User Guide).

• Notes. When you scan a document in Notes, it is saved as a PDF in the note.
• Files. In the Files app you can scan a document with the camera, choose where to keep it and tap Save.
• Preview. Tap Scan Documents. Apple says the iPhone captures the page by itself, or you can switch to manual and tap the shutter, then add more pages and crop or rotate each one (iPhone User Guide).

How to get a clean scan of a card

ID cards are small, shiny and have two sides. A few habits make the copy readable.

1. Use a dark, plain background. A dark table or a sheet of black paper lets the scanner find the card’s edges.
2. Turn off overhead glare. Tilt the card, or move away from a lamp, until the photo and the hologram don’t flash white.
3. Hold the phone flat and still, right above the card, not at an angle.
4. Scan the front, then the back, in one go. Both pages end up in a single PDF, so they stay together.
5. For a passport, scan the photo page only, unless someone has asked for others.
6. Zoom in on the result. Check that the number, the dates and the small print are sharp before you file it.

Where the scan should go

A scan in Notes or Files is out of your camera roll, which is good. It isn’t locked, which matters for an ID. Here is what each home offers.

The Notes row surprises people: a note that holds a scan is exactly the kind of note Notes won’t lock. Apple says you can’t lock notes that have tags, PDFs, audio, video, or Keynote, Pages or Numbers documents, or notes you share with someone else.

Scanning straight into a vault

Some vaults can scan, so the page never sits anywhere unlocked. Sealed Pro can scan paper with the camera, or import PDFs and other files, into the vault. In Sealed:

1. Tap the plus button, then Scan Document.
2. Hold the phone over the front of the card, then the back. Sealed scans with Apple’s own document scanner, which finds the edges of the page, straightens it and captures several pages in a row, and Sealed turns the pages into one PDF in your vault.
3. Save the scan. A scan is written to a temporary PDF that Sealed imports into the vault and then deletes.

Keep the recovery key off the phone before you rely on it. What a recovery key is explains why.

Before you send a scan to anyone

A landlord, an employer or a bank may ask for a copy. A few habits keep that copy from spreading.

1. Send only what was asked for. If they want the front, don’t send the back.
2. Mark the copy. Write who it is for and the date across a corner with the Markup tool, so it can’t be reused for something else as easily.
3. Use their upload page if they have one, rather than email, which keeps a copy in two inboxes for years.
4. Delete it from Sent once they confirm they have it.

Many forms want only the number and the expiry date, not a picture. The passport guide shows how to keep those as text instead.

Where Sealed helps, and where it doesn’t

It helps by scanning straight into the vault, with no copy left in Photos or Files. A scan is written to a temporary PDF that Sealed imports into the vault and then deletes.

It helps with one passcode over every ID you keep, separate from your iPhone’s. Sealed has a passcode of its own, a gate inside the app that is separate from your iPhone passcode.

It doesn’t remove copies you made earlier, in Notes, Files or Photos. Delete those yourself. Until you delete them, the originals stay in Photos, outside the vault.

It doesn’t scan on the free plan. On the free plan you can add photos. Videos, documents, notes and records need Sealed Pro.