What to write on an ID card copy watermark

A useful watermark answers three questions: who may receive the copy, what it is for, and when you prepared it. Naming the recipient means a copy that leaks from one company cannot be passed off as one you gave to another. Naming the purpose stops a copy made for a rental application from opening a phone contract. The date shows how old the copy is.

Compare “For use only” with “For Northgate Lettings – tenancy application only – 2026-11-06”. The first says nothing about who or what; the second can be checked against the file the agency keeps. The ID card tool on this site uses the same structure by default: “For {recipient} – {purpose} only – {date}”. The date field inserts the current UTC date when you generate the image, not the issue date printed on the document.

Replace the brackets and keep the line short enough to read when it is repeated across the image. If you were given a reference number, add it: a copy tied to one application is harder to reuse than one tied to a company name alone.

Do not add information the recipient did not ask for. Writing your phone number, account number, tax reference or home address on an ID copy turns one leaked document into a complete profile. The watermark should describe the copy, not add to it.

Some documents have a side that should not be copied at all: Japan’s Digital Agency states that the My Number on the back of the My Number card may not be transcribed or copied, except by an organisation that collects it by law. Check which sides and fields the recipient genuinely needs before you scan.

A passport copy usually means the photo page only; keep the text over the machine-readable zone light enough for the characters to stay legible. National ID cards are often requested as both sides, so prepare two images with the same line. Driving licences carry an address, which is often the only reason a recipient asks for them, so keep it readable if that is the point of the check. Whatever the document, never write on the original; the watermark belongs on the copy or scan.

On paper, a pen note works. A 2022 reminder from the Lanzhou Intermediate People’s Court suggests writing the purpose in blue or black ink, as “This copy is only for [purpose]; further copies are invalid”, over three lines, each ending with a stroke. It is a court’s reminder rather than a regulation.

For a scanned file, draw the text as a tiled layer so it cannot be cropped away from one corner. The copy is redrawn and saved as a new JPG, PNG or WebP, which usually drops the scanner or camera metadata of the original.

France runs a free state service, Filigrane Facile, which stamps up to 100 characters across JPG, PNG, HEIC or PDF uploads and returns a PDF. Its page warns that some organisations, such as banks and public services, may need a clean document. This site is independent from that service and produces an image or a single-page PDF; a PDF copy can be watermarked with the PDF watermark tool.

Tile the watermark so it crosses the photo and the document number while the name, date of birth and validity dates stay readable. Mid-grey text at about half opacity, rotated, with spacing that lands at least two full lines on the card, is a good starting point. Check the preview at full size before you download.

The ID card watermark tool fills in the recipient, purpose and date fields and repeats the line across the image in your browser. Nothing is uploaded; the privacy policy describes what the site does and does not collect.

France: France Travail promotes the state service Filigrane Facile with example wording such as “Document transmis à [nom du recruteur] le [date] — usage candidature uniquement”, and advises changing the text for each recipient. That is the clearest official endorsement of the recipient, date and purpose structure we found.

United Kingdom: GOV.UK tells employers doing a right-to-work check to make a copy that cannot be changed, such as a photocopy, to record the date of the check, and to keep the copy during employment and for two years afterwards. It does not tell the employee to write anything on the copy, so a watermark is your choice, not a requirement.

Hong Kong: the Privacy Commissioner’s leaflet on the identity card code says an organisation must generally mark the copy of a Hong Kong ID card it keeps with the word “copy”, and that a copy handed over in person should be marked in your presence. We found no US, mainland Chinese or Taiwanese authority recommending that individuals write on copies, so the templates above are advice, not rules.

A watermarked copy is still a copy. The text raises the cost of reusing it and makes misuse easier to trace, but it does not stop someone from retyping the details or prove who sent the file. Keep the original safe and delete copies you no longer need.

Some recipients refuse any marking and ask for a clean image; ask before you send. The date in the watermark is the day you generated it, in UTC, not a date read from the document or the file. For visible dates, filenames or sequence numbers on ordinary photos, the date and filename watermark tool is the better fit.