# Store passport and ID photos privately on your iPhone

> Find passport and ID scans on your phone, delete the ones you do not need, keep the rest in a Vault9 vault, and know what to do if a copy leaked.

Source: https://vault9app.com/scenarios/passport-id-photo-privacy/

Keep only the passport and ID copies you will use again. Delete the rest, and move the ones you keep out of Photos into a Vault9 vault. A passport scan holds your name, your face and your document number, so it earns a lock of its own.

## Count the copies first

Search the phone for passport and visa pages, driver's licence and ID cards, and the selfies you took to prove who you are. Check Messages, Files and downloads too, because a scan you sent once may still be there.

Ask of each copy: will I use this again? If not, delete it. In Photos it then sits in **Recently Deleted** for 30 days, so delete it there as well. With iCloud Photos on, the delete reaches every device on your Apple Account.

## Move the keepers into the vault

1. Import photos from Photos into Vault9. Import PDFs from the Files app.
2. Open them in the vault to check.
3. Delete the originals in Photos. Vault9 never does this for you.
4. Delete them from **Recently Deleted** too.

The vault opens with your pattern or passphrase and your Secret Key, or Face ID if you turn it on. Your phone passcode never opens it. To make a fresh scan, see how to scan an ID or passport on iPhone.

A passport scan in the camera roll is open to anyone who has your phone and its passcode. In Vault9 it is encrypted behind a pattern or passphrase of its own. [Vault9 on the App Store](https://apps.apple.com/app/id6830759639?pt=129716075&ct=passport-id-photo-privacy-md)

## A trip can take the phone and the passport together

You can restore the vault on a new phone only if you prepared before the trip.

- Keep the iCloud backup working. It holds the encrypted vault, not the Secret Key, and it is the only copy outside the phone.
- Keep your Emergency Kit on paper at home, not in the bag with the phone.
- On the new iPhone, open the vault from the iCloud backup. The app asks once for the Secret Key from your kit, then for your pattern or passphrase.

Lose both the phone and the kit, and you cannot open your copies on another phone.

## Sharing a scan, and a scan that got out

Export decrypts the item and sends it to the iOS share sheet. The person or app that receives it then has a normal copy. Send only what is needed, and delete your own export copies when you finish.

Vault9 cannot take back a scan that you already gave away. In the US, the Federal Trade Commission runs IdentityTheft.gov, where you report identity theft and get a recovery plan. The FTC also explains credit freezes and fraud alerts. Elsewhere, look for your country's official guidance.

One limit stays: Vault9 does not protect a vault that is open on an unlocked phone. The app locks when it goes to the background, after a time without a touch, or when you lock it.

## Sources

- [Apple Support: Delete photos on your iPhone or iPad](https://support.apple.com/en-us/104967) (checked 2026-11-06)
- [FTC: What to know about identity theft](https://consumer.ftc.gov/articles/what-know-about-identity-theft) (checked 2026-11-06)