Anonymise your driving licence and add a watermark

A copy of your driving licence usually goes to an employer, a car hire desk, an insurer or a private hire operator, and almost all of them want the same thing: proof that you hold a valid licence for the right kind of vehicle. That means your name, photo, expiry date and categories.

Your date and place of birth, address and signature can be covered, and a watermark naming the recipient and the month makes any reuse of the copy obvious. The tool above handles both from a single photo of the card.

Before you send anything, ask one question back. An employer or hire company that only wants to know what you can drive and whether you have points can check it straight from DVLA with a check code you create on GOV.UK. That route needs no photo of your card at all, and it is explained below.

If they still want a picture, send a covered one. Below: the check code, the photocard field by field, what car hire, insurers and private hire operators actually look at, what to write in the watermark, and how to send it. A UK licence is one of the ID documents Nonimo covers, alongside the passport, which has its own page on watermarking a copy.

How to send a copy of your driving licence from your phone

Put the card on a plain, dark surface, take a photo of the front, and drop it into the tool at the head of this page. A scan works too. It accepts JPG, PNG, WEBP and PDF files, plus HEIC, the format iPhones use for photos, and on a phone the page can open the camera directly.

1. Drop in the photo. The tool reads the card in your browser, recognises a UK photocard licence, from the DVLA or Northern Ireland’s DVA, and can crop to the card or keep the whole photo.
2. Check the starting point. Your name, driver number, photo, expiry date and vehicle categories show; the date and place of birth, issue date, issuing authority, address and signature start covered.
3. Adjust with the chips. One tap on a field’s chip covers it or shows it again. For anything the chips miss, draw a box over it by hand.
4. Write the watermark. The watermark field opens with a ready line, copy for ___ only, followed by the current month.
5. Download. Choose PNG, JPG or PDF; what you covered and the watermark become part of a new image.

The categories never get covered, because they are the reason anyone asks for a licence in the first place. Everything else is your call, field by field. Our desktop app for Mac and Windows does this too, from a licence photo or scan saved on your computer.

Your licence never leaves your device: it is read and covered in your browser. Nothing is uploaded to our servers or anyone else’s, and the file you download is re-encoded, so the camera details and GPS position stored in the original photo stay behind. Office documents carry the same kind of hidden data, as our guide to removing metadata from PDF and Word files shows.

Driving licence check for an employer: the check code comes first

If you drive for work, your employer has a good reason to know you hold the right entitlement and how many points you carry. What it does not need is a photo of your card sitting in an HR folder. DVLA already offers the check, and it runs on a code you control.

How the DVLA check code works

On GOV.UK’s View or share your driving licence information service you sign in with your driving licence number, your National Insurance number and the postcode on your licence. From there you can see the vehicles you can drive and any penalty points or disqualifications, and create a check code to share your record.

Your employer then uses Check someone’s driving licence information with the code and the last eight characters of your driver number. The code must be used within 21 days, and only once: another check needs another code. Both services cover licences issued in England, Wales and Scotland; Northern Ireland has its own.

21 daysto use a DVLA check code

1 checkper code; the next check needs a new one

8 charactersof your driver number go with the code

Notice what you hand over: a short code and eight characters, typed into an email. Not your date of birth, not your address, not your signature. The National Insurance number you used to sign in stays with you too; if a form asks for it separately, our guide to the National Insurance number explains why it deserves the same care.

If your employer still asks for a photo of the card

Some employers want a copy on file as well, often because an insurer or a fleet policy asks them to show they looked at the licence. The ICO’s guidance on data minimisation is the principle that applies: an organisation should identify the minimum personal data it needs for its purpose, hold that much, and no more.

For a driving check, that minimum is your name, your photo, the expiry date and the categories. So send exactly that. Cover the rest, write the employer’s name and the month in the watermark, and the copy answers their question without becoming a full identity kit in a shared drive. Payroll often sits with an outside bureau, which is one reason our page for accountants and bookkeepers deals with staff records travelling between firms.

What to cover on a UK photocard driving licence, field by field

The front of the photocard numbers its fields, and DVLA’s leaflet INS57P, which arrives with every licence, labels what each one holds. Here is the front as it reaches a copy, with the tool’s starting point and our recommendation.

No.	Field on the front	Tool starts with it	In a copy you send
1 and 2	Surname and first names	Visible	Keep
3	Date and place of birth	Covered	Cover unless asked
4a and 4c	Issue date and issuing authority	Covered	Cover
4b	Expiry date	Visible	Keep: shows the card is current
5	Driver number	Visible	Keep only if they will record it
7	Signature	Covered	Cover
8	Permanent address	Covered	Show only as proof of address
9	Vehicle categories	Always visible	Keep

Field labels from DVLA, INS57P. The last column is our recommendation; the tool’s chips change any row in one tap.

The black and white photo carries no number. Where the card also prints a smaller second image of your face, the tool’s photo chip treats the two as one, so showing or covering your face is a single decision.

The driver number gives away more than it looks

Field 5 is the one to think about. INS57P sets out how the 16 character driver number is put together. It opens with the first five letters of your surname, padded with nines if it is shorter, then six digits that hold your year, month and day of birth, with five added to the first digit of the month for women, then the first two initials of your first names, then computer check digits.

16 characters

So a copy with field 3 covered and field 5 visible still tells the reader when you were born. Show the number to someone who will genuinely record it, such as a hire company filling in an agreement or an insurer setting up a policy. For anyone else, tap its chip. The full breakdown of DVLA’s own sample is in our list of personal data to remove before AI.

The back of the card: categories, dates and codes

The back repeats your categories in a table with the dates each one is valid from and to, plus information codes and a unique card identifier. GOV.UK’s list of driving licence codes shows why that matters: code 01 means eyesight correction, 02 a hearing or communication aid, and others describe adapted controls or an automatic only restriction.

That is more about you than most recipients need. Send the back only when someone asks for it, typically a fleet manager checking a lorry or minibus entitlement. When you do, it can be covered too, with the chips or with a box you draw over the codes or the card identifier. Information about health has extra protection in UK law, a point our guide to special category data develops.

Driving licence for car hire, in the UK and abroad

Hiring a car is the other everyday reason for a licence copy. GOV.UK names a car hire company as the example of who you might share a check code with, and the same code works here as for an employer: the hire company sees your entitlement and penalty points directly from DVLA.

Before you fly: the code, the card and the copy

Abroad, the card itself is the document. GOV.UK’s page on driving abroad says you need to take your Great Britain or Northern Ireland licence with you, check it is still valid, and find out whether the country you are visiting also requires an international driving permit.

Timing helps. A check code lasts 21 days, so create it in the last fortnight before the trip, not when you book in spring. If the broker asks for a picture of the licence at booking, send the covered version with the booking reference in the watermark, and bring the card to the desk. If the broker wants your passport as well, cover and watermark the passport copy in the same way.

Who asks	What they look at	What to send
Employer, driving role	Entitlement, points, expiry	Check code, or a covered copy of the front
Car hire in the UK	Entitlement, points	Check code, then the card at the desk
Car hire abroad	The card itself	The card; a covered copy if the broker asks at booking
Insurer	Name, driver number, categories	Covered copy of the front
Private hire operator	Licence held, categories, expiry	Covered copy for their file; originals at licensing

Our summary of GOV.UK’s guidance on check codes, driving abroad and private hire licences.

Your insurer: a quote, a policy or a claim

Insurers are among the few recipients with a genuine use for the driver number, since they often ask for it when they quote or set up a policy. When an insurer or broker asks for a photo of the licence, at renewal, for a named driver or during a motor claim, keep the name, number, expiry and categories visible and cover the rest.

The watermark is where the claim reference goes. A motor claim file can pass from the insurer to a loss adjuster, a repairer and a hire car provider, and a line such as copy for the claim team only, with the month, travels with the image. Brokers handle more licence copies than almost anyone, and our page for insurance brokers covers the claim files where those copies end up once AI tools are in the office.

Driving for Uber or another private hire app

To carry passengers for an app or a minicab firm you need a private hire driver licence on top of your ordinary one. GOV.UK’s page on driver licences for taxis and private hire vehicles says you apply to Transport for London if you want to work in London and to the local council elsewhere, and that you usually need to have held a full driving licence for at least 12 months.

The licensing authority runs its own checks, and the same page notes you might have to complete an enhanced DBS check, a medical and, in some areas, a knowledge or driving test. Those checks happen through the authority’s own process, not through a photo you send to a recruiter.

What you do send by message, often more than once, is a picture of the licence to the operator or app that onboards you. Courier and delivery platforms often ask for the same. Send the front covered, with the platform’s name in the watermark, through the upload link in the app you signed up with, and keep a note of what went where.

If your onboarding paperwork goes through an AI tool on your side, how ChatGPT handles what UK users send it is worth reading first.

What to write in a driving licence watermark

A watermark should answer a stranger’s question at a glance: who was this copy meant for? Three parts do it: the recipient, the purpose and the month. The tool fills in the month for you and leaves the rest of copy for ___ only to complete.

Copy for the transport firm’s HR only, van driver role · October 2026

If that image later turns up attached to a phone contract or a credit application, the line contradicts it on sight. Keep it short enough to read at an angle; a full sentence turns into texture.

Reason	Watermark line
Employer	Copy for HR only, van driver role · October 2026
Car hire booking	Copy for the hire broker only, Malaga booking · October 2026
Insurer	Copy for the claim team only · October 2026
Private hire platform	Copy for driver onboarding only · October 2026

Examples only, with invented recipients: use the real one and the real month.

All over or Stamp

The All over style repeats your line diagonally across the whole card, through the photo, the name and the driver number. It is the harder one to crop or retouch, and the right choice for anything going to someone you have never met. Stamp puts the line in one discreet band, cleaner when the copy is for an office that already knows you.

Either way, the text is part of the image. A watermark typed into a PDF editor sits on top of the page and can be lifted off, the same weakness our guide to redacting a PDF demonstrates with black boxes.

Send it by email, WhatsApp or an upload link

How the copy travels matters as much as what is on it. DVLA’s INS57P puts it plainly: protect yourself against identity theft and do not post images of your driving licence online. A licence photo in a group chat or a public reply is exactly that.

• An upload link from an organisation you already deal with means the file does not sit in two mailboxes. Find the link yourself, in the app or on the company’s own site.
• Email is fine for a covered copy, sent to an address you checked yourself. Delete it from your sent folder when the job or the booking is done.
• WhatsApp leaves the image in your chat and theirs, and often saves it to each phone’s photo library. Send the covered version only, and ask the recipient to delete it once they have read it.

If a message you did not expect asks for a photo of your licence to “verify” a job offer or a parcel, call the company on a number you found yourself. A real employer can use the check code.

Before an AI reads it, cover more

Photos of licences increasingly go into AI tools: a fleet manager asking a chatbot to read a batch of them, or a driver asking what a code on the back means. For that, a copy for a person is not enough. Tap the name, driver number and photo chips as well, so the AI sees the categories and dates and nothing that points to you.

The chatbot keeps the uploaded photo too, sometimes after the chat itself is deleted, as our guide to what four AI tools keep of a photo explains.

A passport goes through the same tool, for the many requests that want both documents.

The same approach runs through Nonimo, software that hides client names, ID numbers and addresses in a file or prompt before an AI sees it.

Sources

• GOV.UK, View or share your driving licence information: for licences issued in England, Wales or Scotland; view the vehicles you can drive and any penalty points or disqualifications; create a check code to share your record, for example with a car hire company; the code is valid for 21 days; you need your driving licence number, National Insurance number and the postcode on your licence.
• GOV.UK, Check someone’s driving licence information: the checker needs the last 8 characters of the driver’s licence number and a check code from the driver; the code must be used within 21 days and only once.
• DVLA, INS57P Information on driving licences (PDF): the leaflet’s warning against identity theft and against posting licence images online; the make-up of the driver number: first five letters of the surname, date of birth with 5 added to the month digit for women, first two initials, check digits; the labelled fields of the photocard, front and back, among them the information codes and the unique card identifier.
• GOV.UK, Driving licence codes: the codes on the back of the licence; 01 eyesight correction, 02 hearing or communication aid, codes for modified controls and 78 for automatic transmission only.
• GOV.UK, Driving abroad: take your Great Britain or Northern Ireland licence with you to drive abroad, check it is valid, and check whether you need an international driving permit.
• GOV.UK, Driver licences for taxis and private hire vehicles: apply to Transport for London to work in London or to the local council elsewhere; usually a full licence held for at least 12 months; possible enhanced DBS check, medical, knowledge test and driving test.
• ICO, Principle (c): Data minimisation: identify the minimum personal data needed for the purpose, hold that much and no more; do not collect personal data on the off chance it might be useful.