The short answer. Nothing happens by itself. A Red Notice rests on the requesting country's warrant, and INTERPOL's rules place the duty to keep data "accurate, relevant, not excessive in relation to their purpose and up to date" on the country that recorded it. If the charge is dropped or the person acquitted and the country does not update or withdraw the notice, the data is non-compliant — and a correction or deletion request to the CCF puts that failure to the test.
The case ends; the notice does not know.
Whose job it is
Article 12 of INTERPOL’s Rules on the Processing of Data sets the standard, and places responsibility squarely: the bodies that record data “shall be responsible for the quality of the data they record and transmit.” Article 46 adds that the recording bureau “shall update them regularly.” The system assumes a diligent requesting country. Where it is the complainant’s ally, or simply slow, a person acquitted in 2025 can still be arrested at a border in 2026 on a Red Notice nobody cancelled.
What the rules give you
Three provisions. Article 48 obliges any body with “specific, relevant reasons for considering that data are incorrect” to inform the recording country, which “shall promptly examine the information and, if necessary, modify, correct or delete the data.” Article 51 lets the General Secretariat itself request that examination when it has such reasons. And Article 29 of the CCF’s Statute gives you the right to ask the Commission directly for correction or deletion.
An acquittal does not delete a notice. It makes the notice inaccurate — and inaccurate data is what the rules forbid.
Correction or deletion?
Where the proceedings are over — acquittal, charges withdrawn, a conviction quashed — the purpose of the notice has gone, and deletion is the natural request: data that no longer serves its purpose is neither relevant nor up to date. Where the case continues but the record is wrong — a charge reduced below the penalty threshold, a sentence served, an extradition refused — a correction request can be the better tool: it changes how every border reads the notice even if the notice survives.
In either case the evidence is the court’s own document — the judgment, the order discontinuing the prosecution — translated into a working language and placed at the front of the file: the finding by a competent authority that INTERPOL’s rules let the Commission rely on.
The route and the timetable
The Commission consults the requesting country before it decides, so the file should anticipate the answer that comes back — a fresh charge, an appeal, a claim that the acquittal is not final. Its 2024 report notes that non-compliant data “in most cases” is deleted, “though in some cases” corrected; in 164 deletion requests that year the data was removed before the Commission even ruled — faced with a judgment, countries often withdraw rather than argue. The timetable is the Commission’s own.
Related
- Which INTERPOL rules get a Red Notice deleted?
- Does a refused extradition end a Red Notice?
- Does a Red Notice expire?
- INTERPOL's Rules on the Processing of Data, Articles 12, 46, 48, 50 and 51 — interpol.int
- INTERPOL — Red Notices — interpol.int
- Statute of the CCF, Articles 29 and 34 — interpol.int
- CCF Annual Activity Report 2024, page 8 — interpol.int
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