# Email Visibility in Site Admin User Search

**URL:** <https://community.developer.atlassian.com/t/email-visibility-in-site-admin-user-search/30493>\
**Category:** Jira Cloud\
**Tags:** gdpr\
**Created:** [July 17, 2019, 9:34pm UTC](https://community.developer.atlassian.com/t/email-visibility-in-site-admin-user-search/30493 "2019-07-17T21:34:35Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![MichaelNelson](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/atlassiandeveloper/user_avatar/community.developer.atlassian.com/michaelnelson/32/38076_2.png) [@MichaelNelson](https://community.developer.atlassian.com/u/MichaelNelson)\
**Post date:** [July 17, 2019, 9:34pm UTC](https://community.developer.atlassian.com/t/email-visibility-in-site-admin-user-search/30493/1 "2019-07-17T21:34:35Z")

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Hi! We (and at least some of our customers) have encountered the rollout of profile visibility controls ([Weekly GDPR API status development - Jul 12 (Profile Visibility Controls Launching on Monday)](https://community.developer.atlassian.com/t/weekly-gdpr-api-status-development-jul-12-profile-visibility-controls-launching-on-monday/30392)).

We have confirmed that when we call user search API (/rest/api/2/user/search?query=), “emailAddress” is empty for users who have not changed default visibility settings. When users change email visibility to “Anyone”, we then get a valid email for “emailAddress” in the response.

However, documentation ([Update your profile and visibility settings | Atlassian Support](https://confluence.atlassian.com/cloud/update-your-profile-and-visibility-settings-968656104.html)) suggests that “Your email address is always visible to site admins no matter its visibility setting.” When we make user search API calls as a user belonging to the “site-admin” group to search for a user with default email visibility, we still see an empty “emailAddress”.

Are additional groups or permissions required for API users to see site user emails? Does visibility to site admins only apply in the UI and not APIs perhaps?

Cheers

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**Author:** ![driver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@driver](https://community.developer.atlassian.com/u/driver)\
**Post date:** [July 24, 2019, 6:20am UTC](https://community.developer.atlassian.com/t/email-visibility-in-site-admin-user-search/30493/2 "2019-07-24T06:20:15Z")

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Hi Michael,

> Your email address is always visible, no matter its visibility setting, **to site admins when they’re managing users in the Administration screens**. **Visibility settings** for all other fields, including the email address field, **are applied when site admins collaborate with you within products**.

As I understand admins could see emails only in the Administration screens but users’ settings are applied for the REST API.

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**Author:** ![MichaelNelson](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/atlassiandeveloper/user_avatar/community.developer.atlassian.com/michaelnelson/32/38076_2.png) [@MichaelNelson](https://community.developer.atlassian.com/u/MichaelNelson)\
**Post date:** [July 24, 2019, 2:21pm UTC](https://community.developer.atlassian.com/t/email-visibility-in-site-admin-user-search/30493/3 "2019-07-24T14:21:50Z")

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Thank you, Aleksandr.

From what I have observed and what I am more recently reading in comments, it appears that, for non-managed accounts, no group memberships or permissions granted to a user can allow that user to see the email address of a JIRA user retrieved by REST API whose account’s email privacy setting is not visible to anyone.

If someone from Atlassian could confirm this, I would appreciate it.

Thanks!