The New Zealand Driver Licence is issued by Waka Kotahi (NZ Transport Agency) and contains your driver licence number, name, date of birth, and more. Most New Zealand online services that ask for ID want a scan showing both sides on a single sheet — this tool does exactly that in three taps.
Common uses
- RealMe identity verification
- insurance
- age verification
- IRD tax number linking
- work-visa applications
Related tools: people scanning this often also need Australian Driver's Licence Scanner and Australian Medicare Card Scanner. Everything runs in the same browser tab — the scans stack in one PDF.
How this scanner works
When you tap "Use camera", the scanner asks your browser for a MediaStream at up to 4K resolution. Once you approve the permission prompt, the live viewfinder shows a soft blue overlay wherever it detects a rectangular ID card — this is real-time edge detection using OpenCV.js running in a Web Worker, so the UI stays smooth even on a mid-range phone.
When you press the shutter, the frame is grabbed with ImageCapture.takePhoto() (falling back to a canvas snapshot on browsers without ImageCapture). The scanner then runs a Canny edge detector, finds the largest four-point contour, and warps the image to a proper rectangle using a 3×3 perspective homography — the same math a flatbed scanner uses when it aligns a slightly-crooked ID card.
Filters, cropping, page reordering and PDF assembly all happen client-side in JavaScript. The finished PDF is generated by jsPDF and offered as a browser download. Because every step runs in your device, we could not access your ID card even if we wanted to — there is no network round trip once the page has loaded.
Works on iPhone, Android, and desktop
Works on any modern browser: Safari on iPhone and iPad, Chrome on Android, Chrome and Edge on Windows, Safari and Chrome on macOS, Firefox and Brave on Linux. No install, no App Store, no Play Store — a URL is the entire onboarding step.
iPhone (Safari): iOS 14.5+ gives the crispest capture because Safari exposes ImageCapture.takePhoto(), which pulls a full-resolution still directly from the camera hardware. On older iOS Safari falls back to a canvas snapshot of the video preview — still 1080p, still enough for a legible scan of a printed page.
Android (Chrome / Edge / Samsung Internet): 4K capture is supported on flagship phones from 2021 onwards; older devices are automatically stepped down to 1080p. If you have a rear-camera Android phone, the scanner picks it automatically ({ facingMode: 'environment' }) so you do not have to flip the camera manually.
Desktop / laptop: Webcam capture works, but for desktop the drag-and-drop upload path is usually faster — drop a JPG, PNG, HEIC, WebP, BMP or TIFF into the drop zone and the scanner pipeline (edge detect → warp → filter → PDF) runs on the uploaded image without needing a live camera.
Why scan ID cards online instead of using an app
Every other online scanner uploads your driver licence to their servers, which is a real risk for an ID that contains your photo, date of birth, address, and ID number. This one runs entirely in your browser using standard web APIs — camera capture, edge detection, compositing, and PDF export all happen locally on your device. Nothing is transmitted to us or to any third party.
Most people looking for a free document scanner end up on one of three apps: CamScanner, Adobe Scan or the built-in scanner in Google Drive / Apple Notes. Each has real drawbacks that a browser-based tool sidesteps.
CamScanner is the market leader but has a difficult history: it was removed from the Google Play Store in August 2019 after Kaspersky found the "Necro" trojan module in one of its SDKs, and although CamScanner was later reinstated with the SDK removed, the free tier still watermarks every scan and pushes subscription upsells. This tool has no watermark, no signup, no upsell.
Adobe Scan and Microsoft Lens are cleaner options but require an Adobe or Microsoft account to save scans as PDF, and force the file through Adobe Document Cloud or OneDrive. Your document leaves your device.
Google Drive scan and Apple Notes scan are convenient but ecosystem-locked — Google Drive scan is Android-only, Notes is iOS-only, and neither lets you export as a two-sided ID card PDF or apply the same B&W scanner filter across every page.
A browser scanner solves the union of these problems: no install, no account, no vendor lock-in, no upload of your document, and no watermark. Whether you are on iPhone, Android, Windows or Mac, the tool is the same URL.
Tips for the best scan
- Put the driver licence on a plain, dark surface for the strongest edge contrast.
- Hold the phone directly overhead, 15–20 cm away. Fill the yellow guide box with the card.
- Use natural light or a bright overhead light. Avoid a single hard shadow across the card.
- If your card has holographic security features, tilt slightly so the pattern doesn't create fake edges.
Privacy
ID cards are the most sensitive data most people carry. This scanner never uploads your driver licence. Open your browser's DevTools → Network tab while you scan and you will see zero outbound requests once the page has finished loading.