Check an ID in one second, from two metres away
Point the camera at the barcode on the back of a licence — or the photo page of a passport. The verdict fills the screen: a colour field, a shape and one word, big enough to read at arm's length in a dark doorway, with a guest waiting.
Requires iOS 18 or later · iPhone · First 20 scans free, then 5 a day free forever
- One secondBarcode to verdict, hands free of the guest
- No accountNothing to sign in to, nothing uploaded
- Works offlineNo connection needed at the door, ever
- Free dailyFive scans a day stay free, permanently
Built for the door, not the desk
One hand, in the dark, with a queue behind the guest. Everything below follows from that.
Point at the document
The back of a licence, or the photo page of a passport. The frame finds the code itself — you do not line anything up.
Read the field, not the text
Colour, shape and one word. Distinct haptics per verdict, so you can feel the answer without looking down at all.
Next guest
Quick mode returns to the camera by itself. Torch, guest counter and manual entry sit in one row under your thumb.
What it looks like
Night and day are both first-class: a club doorway at 1 a.m. and a dispensary counter at noon.
Reads what your guests actually carry
Two standards cover almost every document that reaches a door in North America and Europe.
- Driver's licences and ID cards
- The PDF417 barcode on the back of every US and Canadian licence and state ID (AAMVA), including the older spec versions still in wallets.
- Passports and ID cards
- The machine-readable zone (ICAO 9303) on the photo page — passports from any country, and European national ID cards, which have carried an MRZ by law since 2021.
- Damaged barcode
- Type the date of birth by hand. The result is clearly marked as manual, so the record never claims more than it knows.
- Age threshold
- 16, 18, 19 or 21 — set once a shift, to match what your venue is carding for. Defaults to 21, the strictest option, so an untouched setting fails safe.
Catches what a glance misses
A door is a bad place to do arithmetic and a worse place to spot a reprint.
Expiry and impossible dates
Expired documents, missing dates, dates that cannot exist, and failed MRZ check digits — the arithmetic nobody does correctly at 1 a.m.
Pass-backs
The same ID scanned twice in one shift is flagged instantly — the oldest trick at any door, and the one a tired human misses first.
Front-side check
Read the printed front and compare the surname and date of birth against the barcode or MRZ. The cheap fake reprints the front and keeps a donor card's data — this is what finds it.
Your own ban list
Bar a guest from the result screen and recognise them next time they try. The list is yours, stored on the phone as an irreversible code.
Know your door
Shift counters, pass rate and traffic by hour, so "when is it busiest" is a shape rather than a guess. Export the aggregates to CSV.
Made for the hand
Torch for dark entrances, a visitor counter for occupancy, gloves and one-handed use, and no connection required at any point.
Privacy you can actually explain
A doorman holding a stranger's licence is holding their address, their licence number and their date of birth. Guests ask what happens to it, and "it stays on this phone" should be the true answer, not the reassuring one.
IdScanner has no account and no server. Nothing about a guest is uploaded, because there is nowhere for it to go.
- No account, no cloud. Nothing is uploaded, ever.
- Scan history is off by default. Turn it on and it auto-deletes after 24 hours, 7 days or 30 days — your choice.
- The ban list holds no names. Only an irreversible per-install code, never a name or a number.
- Statistics are counts only. No names, no dates of birth, no licence numbers.
- No face is captured or processed. Comparing the photo to the guest is the doorman's job, and it stays that way.
Free, and Pro
A door that checks a handful of IDs a night never has to pay.
Free No card
Your first 20 scans and your first 7 days — whichever runs out later.
- After the trial, 5 scans a day stay free, forever
- Every verdict, every document type
- Ban list, statistics and history included
IdScanner Pro
Monthly, yearly, or one payment for good — prices shown in the app before you buy.
- Unlimited scans — the busy Saturday is the point
- One-time purchase available — no subscription needed
- Same privacy promise — Pro adds no server either
Questions a door actually asks
Does it tell me whether an ID is fake?
No, and no phone app honestly can. IdScanner reads what the document says and does the arithmetic — it does not authenticate the document itself. What it does catch is the common cheap fake: the front-side check compares the printed front against the barcode or MRZ, and a reprinted front over a donor card's data will not match.
Does it work without internet?
Yes, completely. Parsing happens on the phone. There is no server in the path, so a basement door with no signal behaves exactly like one with full Wi-Fi.
What happens to a guest's data?
It stays on the phone. Scan history is off by default; when you turn it on, it deletes itself after 24 hours, 7 days or 30 days. The ban list stores an irreversible code rather than a name or a licence number, and the statistics are counts with no personal data in them at all.
Can it read European ID cards and passports?
Yes — through the machine-readable zone on the photo page (ICAO 9303), which every passport carries and which EU national ID cards have been required to carry since 2021. The PDF417 barcode path is US and Canada only, because AAMVA is a North American standard and European licences have no equivalent barcode.
Which age thresholds does it support?
16, 18, 19 and 21, set once a shift. It defaults to 21 — the strictest — so a doorman who never opens the setting turns away borderline guests rather than admitting them.
Is it legal advice about carding?
No. Complying with the rules that apply to your venue — including how long you may keep records — remains yours. IdScanner is a tool for reading a document and doing the arithmetic quickly.
Guides for door staff
What we learned building this, written for the person actually standing at the door.
How to spot a fake ID
Why the barcode beats the hologram, and the signals ranked by how much they actually tell you.
Inside a licence barcode
AAMVA PDF417 explained — including the date-format trap that silently produces wrong ages.
Legal drinking age, US and Canada
21 across the US, 18 or 19 by province in Canada, plus the tobacco and cannabis ages.
Put it on the door tonight
The first twenty scans are free, and there is nothing to set up: no account, no pairing, no back office.