donotforward

Donotforward is a policy label and practical instruction used to indicate that the information should not be forwarded to unintended recipients. It is commonly applied to emails, attachments, and documents that contain sensitive or confidential data. The directive is used in professional environments as part of information governance, privacy protection, and data leakage prevention.

In organizations, donotforward may be implemented through policy metadata, access controls, encryption with rights management, or secure sharing platforms. For example, information rights management and enterprise rights-management features can restrict actions such as forwarding, printing, or copying. Modern email and collaboration suites may support a donotforward option or labeling that enforces restrictions when a message is opened by authorized users. In practice, a defined label may accompany a warning in the subject line or body text.

Limitations include reliance on user compliance and potential circumvention by manual copying or screenshots. Therefore, donotforward is typically part of a broader security program that includes user training, data loss prevention policies, encryption, and access controls.

Because the policy can be advisory in some contexts and enforceable in others, organizations often tailor donotforward rules to data sensitivity, jurisdiction, and operational needs.

See also: confidentiality, data loss prevention, information rights management, secure sharing, encryption.