When a Red Notice Rests on Poor-Quality Data
The Organization’s own rules require the data it processes to be accurate, relevant, and sufficient for the purpose. A request that fails those requirements — wrong facts, missing judicial basis, conduct that is not an offence, proceedings that have ended — should not be in the files, whatever the merits of the underlying dispute.
This is the most technical of the four grounds and often the most productive, because it does not require anyone to characterise a foreign state’s motives. It requires the request to be read closely against the rules, which is why the access request comes first: the argument is only available once the record is known.
What the argument needs
Every ground on this site is stated with what it requires, because a ground without evidence is not an argument. Assembling that evidence is the work — speak to a lawyer about your Interpol file.
How the Commission has applied it
The published decisions are the only public record of how the rules are read, and they show the same pattern across all four grounds: what is documented succeeds, what is asserted does not — how the CCF has applied this ground.
Frequently asked
What if the charges were dropped in the requesting country?
Then the judicial basis for the request has gone, and the data should be deleted. It has to be documented from the requesting state, which is frequently the hard part.
Does an acquittal delete a red notice?
It removes the basis for it. The Commission still requires the acquittal to be evidenced rather than asserted.
Can a red notice be deleted for lack of evidence?
Not for weakness of the case — the Commission does not assess guilt. It can be deleted where the request itself fails the rules on sufficiency and judicial basis.