> I hope it served as a good lesson to the average person to be more cautious while submitting sensitive information like a government ID.

This absolutely should not be normalized. If I'm ever prompted to submit photos of a government ID to some service, I'm turning heel. I'll try to use their phone service (which I just did successfully this week), correspond via mail or maybe, as you've said, handle it in person but I'm probably content to go without.

The sad part is that your government ID is about as likely to be leaked by the government agency itself than it is by any third party that has an scan of it.

My driver's license is scanned every time I buy beer. I'm under no illusions that it's not quite readily available in any number of leaks or disclosures.

If that sounds defeatist, maybe it is. Nothing online is private. Once it's in a database, it's only a matter of time before it's exposed. History has proven this again and again.

You need to do this for background checks for employment, even though the employees for the background check service might be outsourced to a different country, and your government data had no protections in their jurisdiction.

I always do. I would have never made social media accounts if it required phone or ID. Thankfully I'm old so my accounts were made before normies flooded the net and started trusting everything.

Every hotel and his dog takes a copy of my passport, it’s basically public domain.