diff --git a/modules/user_accounts/php/edit_user.class.inc b/modules/user_accounts/php/edit_user.class.inc
index a7348f93bc9..d7a13713886 100644
--- a/modules/user_accounts/php/edit_user.class.inc
+++ b/modules/user_accounts/php/edit_user.class.inc
@@ -1287,8 +1287,6 @@ class Edit_User extends \NDB_Form
      */
     private function _getEmailError(\Database $DB, string $email): ?string
     {
-        // remove illegal characters
-        $email = filter_var($email, FILTER_SANITIZE_EMAIL);
         if (!filter_var($email, FILTER_VALIDATE_EMAIL)) {
             // If email not syntactically valid
             return "Invalid email address";