How to Prevent Identity Fraud When Submitting KYC, Tax, or Rental Documents Online
Whether you are applying for an apartment, signing an employment contract, booking a vacation rental, or selling a car, strangers and companies constantly ask for a photo of your ID. Here is how to verify your identity without handing criminals a blank check.
1. What Criminals Can Do With an Unprotected ID Photo
Unlike a stolen credit card—which you can cancel and replace with a new 16-digit number in five minutes—you cannot easily replace your date of birth, full legal name, place of birth, or national identification number. Once an unredacted scan of your passport or national ID card leaks online, identity thieves use it for years:
- SIM Swapping Attacks: Attackers use leaked ID scans to convince mobile carrier support agents to port your phone number to their eSIM, intercepting SMS two-factor authentication codes for your bank and email accounts.
- Marketplace Escrow Scams: Scammers pose as legitimate sellers on second-hand marketplaces (eBay, Marktplaats, Kleinanzeigen, Craigslist) and send your real passport photo to victims to "prove" they are trustworthy—causing the police and angry victims to show up at your doorstep.
- Fintech & Crypto Account Creation: Automated KYC pipelines at poorly regulated platforms accept high-resolution unwatermarked ID photos to open mule accounts.
2. Which Fields Should You Always Black Out?
Unless you are submitting documents directly to a government tax authority, notary, or licensed bank that is legally required to record your national identification number, you should always redact:
| Document Field | Should You Redact It? | Why? |
|---|---|---|
| National ID Number (SSN / BSN / NIN) | YES — Always black out (unless statutory employer/bank) | Primary key for government, tax, and credit bureau impersonation. |
Bottom MRZ Barcode Lines (<<<) |
YES — Black out the ID number portion | In many passports, your national ID number is repeated inside the machine-readable zone at the bottom! |
| Document Number & Portrait Photo | Optional (Redact for low-trust requests like hotel/car bookings) | Prevents automated facial recognition matching and document cloning. |
| Full Name & Expiration Date | Keep visible (under diagonal watermark) | Allows the legitimate recipient to verify your identity and document validity. |
3. Why Diagonal Watermarking Stops Reuse Dead in Its Tracks
When you apply a diagonal watermark across your ID card using ReaDelete—for example, VERIFICATION FOR LANDLORD J. SMITH ONLY • 04-11-2026—the watermark passes directly over the background guilloche patterns and non-essential areas of the card. A human landlord or HR manager can still easily read your name and verify the card, but an automated KYC bot at an online bank or a scammer on a marketplace cannot pass the image off as their own.
Even a watermarked ID card shouldn't sit in an email inbox for five years. Always send it via a ReaDelete One-Time Link so that once the landlord, hotel, or HR manager views and verifies your identity, the image is permanently erased from memory.