📎 AI Summary:
In this thread, the original poster is concerned about personally identifiable information, such as their real name and computer name, being automatically included in email headers and visible to recipients, especially after receiving a delivery failure notice. They seek to understand whether this information is accessible to email recipients without additional steps. A respondent refers them to RFC 5322, the formal specification for email headers, suggesting that further details about email header data and privacy are available there. Overall, the discussion underscores concerns over automatic data sharing through email headers and advises consulting technical standards for better understanding.

seekermeister

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Thread Author #1
I just received an email delivery failure notification from my ISP for a message that I sent a few days ago. It raised a couple of questions about what personally identifiable information is normally sent to email recipients?

I do know that all email are traceable back to the sender, at least in most cases, but in this notice it prefaced my email address with my actual name and the received from lines actually gave the name of my computer ahead of the portion identifying the ISP's email identification.

I enabled all of the header lines in my email client and checked other emails that I received, and nothing like that was visible...at least not in any form that I understand.

I prefer to pick and choose who knows my actual name when sending an email, and I don't feel that anyone needs to know the name of my computer. Since I do not remember ever being asked the name of my computer when setting up my internet or email service, I must assume that it is being collected automatically.

What I want to know is whether this identification info is available to anyone that I send an email to, without going through channels to obtain it?
 

patcooke

Microsoft MVP
Microsoft MVP
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The formal spec is contained within rfc 5322. Google that and you will find varying resources describing the protocol in forms ranging from formal technical specifications to more narrative descriptions.