How to File a Request with the INTERPOL CCF
A request to the Commission for the Control of INTERPOL’s Files is made in writing, on the request form published on INTERPOL’s own website, by the person the data concerns or by a lawyer acting for them. It costs nothing to file. The Commission will not look at the substance until identity is established, and the common reason a request goes nowhere is that it asserts a ground without documenting it.
People search for a “CCF portal”. What exists is a request form on the Organization’s site, and a postal address in Lyon for applications sent in writing. Either route reaches the same body; neither gives you a case number that can be tracked the way a court file can.
Who may file
- The person concerned
- Anyone may ask what the Organization holds about them. No standing beyond identity is required.
- A lawyer acting for them
- With written authority from the person concerned.
- A legal guardian or heir
- In the circumstances the Commission’s own rules allow.
- Not a third party
- You cannot ask what is held about somebody else.
- Cost
- Nothing. The Commission charges no fee for filing.
What has to go with the request
- Proof of identityA copy of an identity document. Without it the request is not examined on the substance at all.
- The request itselfIn one of the Organization’s working languages.
- What you are asking forAccess to your data, deletion of it, or both. These are different requests with different time limits.
- The evidenceWhatever documents the ground relies on — judgments, procedural history, country material. This is the part that decides the outcome.
- Authority to actWhere a lawyer files, written authority from the person concerned.
Why requests are rejected before anyone reads them
The Commission reports its workload in terms of admissible requests — 2,586 of them in 2024. A request that does not establish identity, or that asks about another person, does not reach the stage where the argument matters. The difficulty in practice is not the form but the file behind it: an application that asserts a ground without documenting it is the most common way a request fails.
How long it takes
The Statute sets targets: absent exceptional circumstances a request for access should be finalised within four months and a request for deletion within nine months. The Commission’s own 2024 figures show how far that holds — 30 per cent of access requests were finalised inside four months and 70 per cent were not, while 70 per cent of deletion requests were completed inside nine months and 30 per cent were not. Article 40(3) of the Statute expressly allows the limit to be extended.
Source: Annual Activity Report of the CCF, 2024. The request form and the Commission’s contact details are published on INTERPOL’s own CCF page.
After the decision
The decision is communicated to the applicant and to the country concerned, and it binds the Organization but not that country’s own proceedings. There is no appeal in the ordinary sense: a further application is possible only where new facts have since emerged — application for revision after a refusal. What the Commission has decided before is visible in the published CCF decisions, and what the Commission is and what it can do is set out separately.
The form is free. The file is the work.
Anyone can file. What decides the outcome is whether the ground argued is documented — how we prepare a removal application.
Request a free case assessmentFrequently asked
Is there a CCF portal?
There is a request form on INTERPOL’s website and a postal address for written applications. There is no case-tracking portal of the kind national courts operate.
Can I file a CCF request myself?
Yes. No lawyer is required and no fee is charged. The difficulty is evidential rather than procedural.
What does a CCF request cost?
Nothing to file. Any cost is the cost of preparing the evidence behind it.
In which language must the request be written?
In one of the Organization’s working languages.
Can I appeal a CCF decision?
Not as an appeal. A further application is possible only on new facts that were not before the Commission.
How will I know the outcome?
The Commission communicates its decision to the applicant and to the country that supplied the data.