The short answer. Possibly — and you would not be told. INTERPOL's DNA database "contains more than 280,000 profiles contributed by 87 member countries", stored as anonymous codes. Its fingerprint system stores every usable print sent with a notice or diffusion. Neither page mentions how a person could check or challenge their inclusion; the route is an access request to the Commission for the Control of INTERPOL's Files, covering all data, not just the notice.
Read INTERPOL’s own pages closely and two things are true at once: the databases are better designed than most people fear, and the pages fall silent exactly where a data subject needs them to speak.
What the DNA database holds
Profiles come from “offenders, crime scenes, missing persons and unidentified human remains”, submitted “in the form of an alphanumerical code” with “no nominal data attached to the profile”. Member countries “retain ownership of the information” and “choose which other countries they share their data with”. That is real privacy design. It is also where the page stops: retention answers to the submitting country, and the person the code describes is never mentioned as having a say.
What the fingerprint system holds
INTERPOL’s fingerprint page states that “all fingerprints of required quality submitted by member countries via I-LINK products (Notices, Diffusions and I-LINK Messages) are processed via the Biometric Hub and are searched and stored” in its automated identification system. In plain terms: prints attached to a Red Notice or a diffusion are searched on arrival and kept. INTERPOL’s data rules treat biometric data as “of particularly important criminalistic value” when used “to identify or confirm the identity of an individual” — which is exactly what a notice is for.
INTERPOL's disclosed biometric holdings · DNA and fingerprint pages, interpol.int, read September 2026.
The biometric shadow of a notice
A notice is never just a name: identifiers travel with it into sibling systems, and a victory over the notice does not automatically reach them. Deleting a Red Notice removes the alert; a fingerprint set searched and stored when the notice arrived is separate data with its own record. INTERPOL’s rules require all of it to be “accurate, relevant, not excessive in relation to their purpose and up to date” — and data whose purpose has gone is hard to call relevant.
Challenge all your data, not just the alert. In INTERPOL's files, your name is merely the identifier you happen to know about.
How to check — and what to ask for
Article 29 of the CCF’s Statute gives any person the right to ask what INTERPOL holds about them. An access request should say so in terms: nominal data, notices and diffusions, and biometric data — DNA profiles, fingerprints, facial images — in every database. A deletion request that follows should chase every identifier the answer reveals. How do I find out if I have a Red Notice? sets out the filing itself.
Related
- How do I find out if I have a Red Notice?
- What is INTERPOL’s CCF, and what can it do?
- Which INTERPOL rules get a Red Notice deleted?
- INTERPOL — DNA — interpol.int
- INTERPOL — Fingerprints — interpol.int
- INTERPOL's Rules on the Processing of Data, Articles 12 and 42 — interpol.int
- Statute of the CCF, Article 29 — interpol.int
- CCF Portal User Guide for Applicants, March 2026 — interpol.int
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