INTERPOL Red Notice: how to find out and how to ask for deletion

What a Red Notice is, and what it is not

INTERPOL describes a Red Notice as a request to law enforcement worldwide to locate and provisionally arrest a person pending extradition, surrender or similar legal action. It is based on an arrest warrant or court order from the requesting country. INTERPOL cannot compel any country to arrest the person.

A diffusion is a similar request sent directly by a member country's National Central Bureau to some or all other countries. INTERPOL says wanted-person diffusions are also checked for compliance by its Notices and Diffusions Task Force.

In the U.S., the Justice Department's INTERPOL Washington says a Red Notice alone does not meet the Fourth Amendment's requirements for arrest. The U.S. treats a foreign Red Notice as a request to be on the look-out and to advise if the person is found. A government that wants an arrest must send a treaty request; see how extradition works.

Other countries apply their own law. The Justice Manual notes that many countries will arrest a person based solely on a Red Notice (JM 9-15.635).

How to find out whether INTERPOL holds data on you

INTERPOL says most notices are for police use only. An extract appears on its public website only if the requesting country wants to alert the public. Not finding your name there does not mean there is no notice.

The formal route is a request for access to the CCF. The CCF first asks INTERPOL's General Secretariat whether any data on you are processed, and it consults the country that supplied the data before disclosing anything (CCF Statute, Article 35). It decides access requests within four months of the date the request was declared admissible.

Grounds the CCF looks at

The CCF does not decide guilt, weigh the evidence on the merits, advise on extradition, or say whether you can travel without being arrested. Those questions belong to national authorities and courts.

• Neutrality (Article 3 of INTERPOL's Constitution). INTERPOL may not undertake any intervention or activities of a political, military, religious or racial character. The CCF applies a predominance test, looking at the charges and facts, the status of the person, the source of the data, the positions of other countries and the general context.
• Human rights (Article 2 of the Constitution). The CCF lists respect for fundamental human rights among the main principles it applies.
• Red Notice criteria (RPD Article 83). Only serious ordinary-law crimes qualify. No Red Notice may be issued for offenses tied to behavioural or cultural norms, family or private matters, or administrative violations and private disputes; INTERPOL gives unfunded cheques as an example unless there was fraudulent intent. For prosecution, the offense must be punishable by a maximum of at least two years; for a sentence, at least six months must have been imposed or remain to be served.
• Data quality and purpose. Whether the data are accurate and still serve the purpose of police cooperation. The CCF's published decision excerpts include topics such as purpose, data quality, ne bis in idem, family matters and lack of action for extradition.

How a request works

Requests are confidential and are not recorded in INTERPOL's information system. Information you mark as confidential is not passed on, but the CCF warns that this can limit its ability to process the request.

1. Prepare the application: identity documents, the decisions in the national case, and the evidence for each ground. Attachments may be pdf, doc, docx, xls, xlsx, csv, txt, rtf, html, jpg, jpeg, png or gif files; video and audio files are not accepted.
2. Submit it through the CCF online portal. Since 10:00 CET on 26 March 2026 the portal is the only channel; requests by email or post are no longer accepted unless the Commission finds exceptional circumstances (Rule 25(2) of its Operating Rules). Applicants or their authorized representatives may file.
3. The CCF checks admissibility under Rule 30 of its Operating Rules, then asks the General Secretariat whether data exist.
4. For deletion or correction, it reviews compliance with INTERPOL's rules and may ask you, the source country or the General Secretariat for more information.
5. It sends a written, reasoned decision to you and to the source country, and tells you how INTERPOL implemented it.

Deadlines and sessions

Note 1

Is there an appeal?

There is no appeal in the ordinary sense. An applicant may ask for revision of a CCF decision based on a newly discovered fact that would probably have led to a different conclusion, within six months of discovering it (CCF Statute, Article 42). The application goes through the portal.

If a notice is cancelled, INTERPOL informs all member countries and asks them to remove the information from their national databases. The national case and the national warrant are not affected by the CCF's decision.

A Red Notice while living in the U.S.

Notices are available to all member countries in INTERPOL's database, so a notice can come up wherever police check it, including at borders abroad.

The CCF does not help with immigration matters or visa applications (CCF FAQ). If a notice is raised in a U.S. immigration case, it is dealt with in that case, by a U.S.-licensed immigration attorney, alongside any CCF request.