Vaultumi

How to keep photos of your ID, passport and documents private on iPhone

By Vaultumi. Published .

Pictures of a passport, driving licence or tenancy contract are the most sensitive images on many phones, and they usually sit in the same grid as holiday snaps. A few habits move them somewhere better and make the copies you send safer.

How to keep photos of your ID, passport and documents private on iPhone

Key takeaways

  • The camera roll is a poor home for ID: it syncs, it gets browsed, and it is open to any app you gave photo access.
  • Scan a document instead of photographing it, and keep it as a document, not a loose picture.
  • Send the smallest copy that does the job, marked with who it is for.
  • Every exported or shared copy is outside the vault, so keep a short list and delete after use.

Why the camera roll is a weak home

An ID photo in your Photos library shares its fate with everything else there.

  • It appears in the grid, in searches and, depending on your settings, in Memories and widgets.
  • With iCloud Photos on, it syncs to your other devices and to anyone who can sign in as you on them.
  • Any app you gave full photo library access can read it, and it is easy to attach by accident when a form asks for a picture.
  • Photos can recognise text inside images, so a number or a name printed on the card may be findable through search.
  • When you hand someone your phone, one swipe too far is all it takes.

The Hidden album helps with the first and last points and does little for the others. The three ways to hide photos compared explains the difference.

Scan, do not just snap

A scan is flatter, better lit and more complete than a photo taken at an angle, and it produces a PDF that clients and offices handle easily. Some tips that apply to any scanner:

  • Use a plain, dark, matte surface and daylight, without a flash glare across a laminated card.
  • Capture all four corners and the full page, then check that every number is readable at full size.
  • Keep multiple pages of one document together in one file.

iOS has built-in scanners in apps such as Notes and Files. Vaultumi also has a document scanner, which is a Premium feature: pages are combined into one PDF that is encrypted as it is imported.

Keep it as a document in the vault

In Vaultumi, a document is an ordinary vault item, so it is encrypted on your iPhone with its own key like a photo. You can bring one in several ways:

  • import a PDF from Files;
  • share a PDF to Vaultumi from another app with Vault Drop, which encrypts it right away and files it at your next unlock;
  • save an image as a document;
  • scan it with the camera (Premium).

Search works inside documents. The text is read on your iPhone with Apple’s Vision framework and kept in a separate sealed file. While the vault is unlocked the text is held in memory for search, and it is cleared when the vault locks. That text file is not part of a backup and is rebuilt after a restore.

The free plan has room for 20 items and 2 albums, and documents are vault items like any other, so a handful of IDs and contracts shares that room with photos. When you are done, delete the loose original from Photos, and empty Recently Deleted. The routine is the same as in moving photos in and out of a vault.

Share a copy, not the original

Landlords, banks and employers often ask for a copy, and they do not need more than they ask for. Before you send:

  1. Ask whether they truly need an image, and in what form. Some will accept a number typed into a secure form instead.
  2. Cover what is not required, such as the number on the back of a card, with a solid fill rather than a light highlight.
  3. Write the purpose and the date across the copy, for example “For the flat application, 12 March”. If it leaks, it is harder to reuse.
  4. Check the metadata, as the guide to removing location from photos describes.
  5. Send it through the channel the recipient names, and ask for it to be deleted when it is no longer needed.

Exporting from the vault gives you a plain file that nothing protects. Delete it, and its Recently Deleted entry, as soon as it has been sent.

Make sure you can still reach them

Documents are most useful when you are away from home, which is also when your phone is most likely to be lost. Do these once:

  • Make a Vaultumi backup file, which includes documents, run the Backup safety check on it, and keep the passphrase elsewhere.
  • Keep the recovery code on paper, away from the phone.
  • If a trusted person should be able to help, consider the free Legacy Kit. It splits a new recovery code into printed cards for a set number of people. It has no timer and releases nothing after a delay.
  • Carry the original when you travel or when the situation requires it.

Honest limits

  • A copy is not the original. Authorities, airlines and employers may insist on the real document, and a stored copy can lag behind a renewed one.
  • Vaultumi cannot protect against a compromised phone, someone watching you enter the PIN, or a weak backup passphrase. It has not been independently audited.
  • While Vault Drop runs, iOS gives the extension a temporary unencrypted copy of the shared file for a short time. Vaultumi cannot control exactly when that copy is removed.
  • Screenshots of an unlocked document are possible, because iOS does not let apps block them, and a screenshot lands in Photos.
  • If your ID is lost or stolen, report it to the issuer. A vault does not undo that.

The security page lists the rest.

The routine in five steps

  1. Scan the document, or save the image as a document.
  2. Keep it in the vault and delete the loose photo and its Recently Deleted copy.
  3. Share a trimmed, marked copy, and only when asked.
  4. Delete the exported copy after use.
  5. Back up the vault and check the backup.

Sources

Primary sources behind the statements about iOS and cryptography on this page. The linked pages are in English.

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