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PhilID, SSS and TIN: protecting pictures of Philippine IDs

Updated 3 November 2026 · By the FirstHour team

Short answerTreat a picture of a Philippine ID like the card itself. Keep the ones you need locked away, delete the rest, and send a covered copy when someone asks. Many of us have photos of our PhilID, SSS or TIN card in our camera roll, so you're not alone.

Why these pictures matter

The Data Privacy Act (Republic Act No. 10173) lists information that is issued by government agencies and is peculiar to a person, such as social security numbers, licenses and tax returns, as sensitive personal information. The same list includes information about a person's health. A picture of an ID usually shows your name, birth date and ID number together.

The law that set up the Philippine Identification System (Republic Act No. 11055) also has a section on protection against unlawful disclosure of information about registered people. This isn't legal advice. It's a sign of how seriously the IDs are treated.

What scammers do with the numbers

The Social Security System (SSS) has warned about fake text alerts that link to phishing sites made to steal SS numbers and My.SSS login details. It has also asked members not to share their usernames and passwords with anyone, saying that giving them away is like sharing an ATM PIN. A picture of your ID in the wrong hands makes a scam call or text sound more believable, because it carries real details. That part is our view.

What to do

  1. Find them. Here's how to look. Look in your chats too, since you may have sent one for a job, a loan or a SIM registration.
  2. Delete the ones you don't need. Deleted photos stay in Recently Deleted for 30 days. With iCloud Photos on, deleting applies to all your devices. Empty Recently Deleted to remove them sooner. That can't be undone.
  3. Lock away the ones you do need, in the Vault or another place with its own lock. Here's how the options compare.
  4. Don't post them. A picture put online can be copied by anyone, and you can't take that back.
  5. Send covered copies. When a company or landlord asks, cover what they don't need and say what it's for. Here's how. This is our advice.

If a picture was shared or posted

How FirstHour helps

Protect looks through your pictures on your iPhone for IDs and shows them in a group called IDs and passports. It looks for the wording and number formats of the PhilID, the SSS ID, the TIN ID, the UMID and several others, such as PhilHealth, Pag-IBIG and driver's licenses. Pictures stay blurred until you're ready, and you can move them to the Vault or save a covered copy. Nothing is uploaded.

It can miss things. A TIN only counts when the ID's own wording is there, such as "Taxpayer Identification", because a bare "TIN" is also printed on shop receipts. So a TIN typed into a chat or a note may not be found. Handwriting, glare, and blurry or cropped pictures are often missed too. It doesn't check videos, PDFs or your Hidden album, and it can't see inside other apps.

Questions

Is it all right to keep a PhilID photo for online forms?

You can, if it's locked away. Keep it in the Vault or another locked place, not in your camera roll, and delete any copies you sent to yourself.

Does FirstHour work only in the Philippines?

No. FirstHour is for everyone. It reads the machine-readable lines on passports worldwide and knows ID formats from a number of countries, but the Philippine ones are the best tested. It may miss ID cards written only in alphabets it reads less well, such as Hebrew, Persian, Bangla and Hindi. This guide is about Philippine IDs because many people here carry them on their phones.

Sources

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