How to redact a passport before sharing a copy

What a passport reveals

Your passport's photo page carries your full name, photo, date and place of birth, nationality, and passport number — plus a machine-readable zone (MRZ) that re-encodes most of it. Hotels, visa centers, banks, and employers routinely ask for a copy of the photo page to confirm your identity.

A clean passport scan is enough to open accounts, apply for credit, or forge travel documents in your name.

What to redact

• Passport number It's the key an identity thief needs to impersonate you or commit visa fraud.
• Machine-readable zone (MRZ) The two coded lines at the bottom re-encode your number, name, and date of birth — redact them or the number leaks anyway.
• Date and place of birth A standard identity-verification answer; paired with your name it is enough for fraud.
• Signature Can be lifted from a scan and reused on forged documents.

What to keep visible

• Your photo
• Your full name
• The expiry date, if the receiver must confirm the passport is valid

Redact your passport in 4 steps

1. Pick the photo. Open Cachera and choose the photo of your passport with the system picker — only that photo is read, never your whole library.
2. Black out the sensitive fields. Drag a black block over the passport number and machine-readable zone. On export the pixels are destroyed — nothing is recoverable underneath.
3. Add a purpose watermark. Stamp who the copy is for, e.g. "For [purpose] only", so it can't be reused elsewhere.
4. Export and share. Lay it out on A4, export a PDF, and share it. Everything stays on your iPhone — nothing is uploaded.

FAQ

What should I black out on a passport?

Hide passport number, machine-readable zone, date and place of birth, signature. Keep your photo and your full name visible so the copy is still useful.

Is it safe to send a copy of my passport?

Only a redacted one. A clean passport scan is enough to open accounts, apply for credit, or forge travel documents in your name. Black out the sensitive fields, add a purpose watermark, and share a flattened copy so it can't be reused.

Can redacted areas be recovered from the file?

No. Cachera flattens the black blocks into the image on export — there is no layer beneath them, so the covered details cannot be recovered from the PDF.