Sending personal documents to rent accommodation or obtain credit is not without danger. Fortunately, there is a simple and free method to limit the risks of misuse.
The digitization of documents and exchanges has made many procedures much easier and faster, but has also created new risks. Whether to rent accommodation or a vehicle, make a reservation for a trip or sign any service contract, we often need to transmit supporting documents and sensitive administrative documents. Identity card, passport, tax notice, proof of address or even bank identity statement (RIB), we must regularly provide these precious documents to third parties, without knowing exactly what they will do with them and how they will will keep them.
Unfortunately, too often, transmitted documents are stored unencrypted on computers or more or less secure storage devices, and can then be subject to a data leak, such as those that regularly make the headlines. Sometimes, the recipients are even malicious actors, who use service platforms and social networks to post false announcements and thus harvest sensitive documents.
In any case, once sent, our documents are completely beyond our control and can very easily be misused for malicious or illicit purposes. Among these fraudulent uses, we obviously think of identity theft, through which a crook can open bank accounts or take out loans in our name, which can have dramatic consequences on our lives. But other apparently less sensitive documents also present risks: with our RIB, a malicious company can, for example, easily set up a direct debit, which we will not immediately notice, and thus drain large sums of money from us. money in the long term.
To limit these risks and complicate the task of potential scammers, a good practice is to systematically affix a watermark to the digital documents that we transmit. Good news, the public authorities have put a completely free and secure service online to do this: WatermarkEasy. Very easy to use, this service allows anyone, without an account or registration, to integrate watermarks on personal documents before sending them. Simply upload the relevant files to the page, write the text to be inserted as a watermark, and then download the modified documents in PDF format.
Certainly, this method of protection is not infallible and the watermarks can be removed with certain computer tools, but it has the merit of making it more difficult to misappropriate these sensitive documents, which will discourage a good number of crooks, and to report to the recipient the confidential nature of the elements transmitted. Using FiligraneFacile being simple, fast, free and secure, it is therefore a good habit to get into, which could avoid many problems and which it would be a shame to do without.