On the rare occasion when I have to do this, I blur the maximum amount of the image and watermark it with hundreds of lines of small red font saying “FOR EMPLOYMENT VERIFICATION BY $X_ENTITY.”

If they have a problem with it then I will gradually remove pieces until they’re okay. But I haven’t had to do this the few times I’ve used this tactic – it causes issues with automated scans but eventually some human manually reviews it and says it’s okay.

What I don’t like is the “live verification” apps that leave me no choice but to take a photo of it.

>What I don’t like is the “live verification” apps that leave me no choice but to take a photo of it.

That's becoming the norm now, presumably because of concern that people are taking leaked scans from one site, and using it to commit identify fraud (eg. getting KYC scans from crypto exchanges and using it to apply for accounts at other crypto changes, for money laundering purposes).

You can use OBS to overlay your watermark on your webcam feed, then expose the composited output as a virtual camera that you select in the browser.

This is a really useful practice, going to implement it as well.

You have a choice of not using such apps.