Do read receipts serve as proof? The truth behind 'read receipts'

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Do read receipts serve to prove that an email has been read?

Many users think that activating the request read receipt option serves to demonstrate that the recipient opened the email. The answer is clear:

No. Read receipts do NOT serve as proof of reading.

Message Disposition Notifications (MDNs) have existed since the late 70s (RFC 3798), but they were not created to prove delivery or reading to third parties, but for basic diagnostics between servers in a very different Internet than today’s.

Why read receipts are not reliable

MDNs present multiple problems that reduce their probative value:

They can be easily falsified, just like any ordinary email.
Many email clients don’t support them, or have them disabled by default.
They depend on the recipient, who can ignore or reject the request without consequences.
They don’t prove the message content, only a reference to part of its header.

In short, they don’t guarantee that the email was read, not even that the notification corresponds to reality.

What RFC 3798 (Message Disposition Notifications) says

The standard itself makes it clear that MDNs lack legal value. Some relevant excerpts:

On falsification

"MDNs may be forged as easily as ordinary Internet electronic mail."

And it adds as security threats related to forged MDNs:

"A falsified disposition notification when the indicated disposition of the message has not actually occurred, and unsolicited MDNs."

On non-repudiation

"MDNs do not provide non-repudiation with proof of delivery. (...) MDNs cannot be relied upon as a guarantee that a message was or was not seen by the recipient."

Even if not manipulated, the standard acknowledges that:

they can be lost in transit,
they can be generated incorrectly,
or the recipient can bypass the mechanism that generates them.

What Gmail says about read confirmations

Gmail is equally emphatic:

Confirmations are only available for Google Workspace accounts (not for personal Gmail).
And it adds an important warning:

"Don't rely exclusively on confirmations to know if your messages have been received."

It even confirms that it’s possible to receive a confirmation for a message that hasn’t been read, or not receive it even though it has been read.

So… what value do they really have?

Very little.

A read receipt cannot be used as proof, neither technical nor legal:

it doesn’t guarantee reading,
it doesn’t guarantee delivery,
it doesn’t guarantee integrity,
and it’s manipulable.

The relevant question is not whether the recipient opened the message, but:

Is it reasonable to think that the recipient didn’t read it if it can be proven that it reached their server?

Nowadays, almost all legitimate emails arrive correctly at the recipient’s mailbox. If no delivery error (bounce) is received, there’s no reason to think otherwise.

Anti-spam filters can affect message visibility, but even in these cases:

quarantine systems allow recovering it,
and delivery to the server is proven.

Certified email: the professional alternative to read receipts

While read receipts lack technical or legal value, certified email does provide solid evidence:

It proves delivery to the recipient’s server.
It proves complete content, through cryptographic hash.
It generates an evidence document (eEvid) electronically signed.
It complies with the European legal framework (eIDAS Regulation).

This converts the communication into authentic proof, completely verifiable, and suitable for legal procedures.

In short

There is no technical way to prove that an email has been read.
But there is a technical and legal way to prove that it reached the recipient’s server, with its content intact.
In a procedure, what’s relevant is not whether the recipient read it, but whether it’s credible that they didn’t after having received it.
Certified email provides that objective and verifiable proof.

Conclusion

Read receipts offered a false sense of security: they depend on the recipient, can be falsified, and don’t prove content or real delivery. Today, they are clearly in disuse.

Certified email is the only standard and legally valid way to prove that a communication reached the recipient’s server with its content intact, meeting the requirements of the eIDAS Regulation.

In today’s legal, technical, and business world, verified evidence is infinitely more valuable than an optional “seen”.

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