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On iPhone or iPad open Settings, then Mail (on newer versions Settings, Apps, Mail), tap Privacy Protection and turn on Protect Mail Activity. On a Mac open Mail, then Settings, Privacy, and select Protect Mail Activity.
Checked:
The protection works only in Apple’s Mail app; Gmail, Outlook and other apps on the same phone have their own settings. It loads remote content privately in the background and hides your network address, but it does not stop tracked links from recording a click.
Senders who use HawkOpen see such requests marked as privacy proxy (R-OPEN-APPLE), not as you reading the message.
Look for tiny remote images and redirected links: open the message source (in Gmail, Show original) and search for 1×1 images or link addresses on a tracking domain, or use a tracker-detecting extension. Emails tracked by HawkOpen say so at the end, with the link “Do not track my activity”.
Some mail apps and services load images through a proxy or block remote content by default, which hides or stops tracking images; Apple Mail with Mail Privacy Protection is one example, and privacy-focused providers such as Proton Mail describe built-in tracker protection. HawkOpen is not a mailbox provider and does not rank them.
Your mail app or a privacy extension found an image in the message that looks like a tracker: tiny, or with an address unique to you. It means the sender may learn when the image loads, not that your computer is infected; usually the tool has blocked or replaced the image.
Not with HawkOpen. It does not look up unknown senders or addresses. For emails you send through it, it shows at most the country of the network a request came from, never a city, a street or a name.
Usually the risk comes from clicking links or opening attachments, not from reading. Reading with images on can, however, tell the sender that a tracking image was loaded. HawkOpen is not an antivirus and does not check emails you receive for malware.
It is an Apple Mail message: Mail Privacy Protection could not fetch the images through Apple’s relay, often because of a VPN or network setting, and asks before loading them directly. It has nothing to do with HawkOpen.
Viva Insights is a Microsoft product, not HawkOpen, so its documentation and your organisation’s Microsoft 365 administrator are the right sources for what it shows and to whom. HawkOpen is not connected to it.
That is a different problem from tracking. Check your provider’s security page for recent sign-ins, devices and connected apps, remove what you do not recognise and change your password. A tracking pixel only reports that an image loaded; it gives no access to your mailbox.
Neither gives senders open tracking by default. Outlook and Google Workspace offer read receipts, which you can decline. Senders who want to know about opens add a tracker, such as HawkOpen, on top.
The feature hides your network address and loads images in advance, but it does not hide what you do yourself: clicking a tracked link, replying or sending a read receipt still tells the sender you engaged.
It identifies which recipient’s copy was loaded, yes: each copy has its own image address. What Apple hides is your network and the moment you read, because it loads the image in advance; HawkOpen marks such loads as Apple Mail Privacy Protection.
Usually a setting: your mail app is set to block remote content, a privacy feature could not load it, or your network or company filter blocks it. Look in the app’s privacy or image settings.
According to Apple, if “Limit IP Address Tracking” is off for a Wi-Fi or mobile network, Mail does not hide your IP address on that network. It is an Apple setting; HawkOpen only classifies the requests it receives.