The short answer. Not INTERPOL. A Red Notice is requested by, and belongs to, a member country's National Central Bureau — the police office every country must designate under Article 32 of the Constitution to liaise with INTERPOL and with every other bureau. INTERPOL's website puts it plainly: are the individuals wanted by INTERPOL? "No, they are wanted by a country or an international tribunal." The bureau that asked must defend the notice, and can withdraw it.
What a National Central Bureau is
Article 32 requires each country to appoint a body liaising with its own departments, with other countries’ bureaus and with the General Secretariat; under Article 26(e), questions about the search for criminals go through it. INTERPOL describes bureaus as “staffed by highly-trained police officers”, sitting “in a unit close to the national police chief”. In the United States the bureau is INTERPOL Washington, a component of the Department of Justice; all 196 member countries’ bureaus are connected by INTERPOL’s secure police network, I-24/7.
What the bureau does with a Red Notice
Under the data rules, notice requests come from a National Central Bureau or an international entity such as a tribunal (Articles 76 and 82). Before asking, the bureau must satisfy itself of the quality and lawfulness of its data and of compliance with Articles 2(1) and 3 of the Constitution. It gives the Article 84 assurances: a warrant from an authority with the power to issue it, and extradition sought upon arrest. It must keep the data accurate, report anything that would change the notice, and withdraw once the purpose is achieved (Articles 80 and 81). Receiving bureaus answer for every action taken on it at home (Article 5(7)).
Who owns the data
The rules call the bureau the “source”, defined as the body “ultimately responsible for those data” (Article 1(6)), and Article 5(5) makes the source “fully responsible for the data it processes” and for the consequences of processing it. The General Secretariat reviews, publishes and can cancel the notice; it does not own the data. That is why a refused extradition binds one country and not the notice, and why a bureau that stays silent before the Commission loses: in 2024, fifty deletion requests were upheld for a bureau’s “total lack of cooperation”.
Why it matters to you
Three consequences. The bureau is the Commission’s counterpart: under Articles 21 and 34 of the CCF Statute, the Commission consults the source and puts your arguments to it, so your file is written for that reader. Article 28(2) preserves your right to ask the source country itself to correct or delete its data — a route alongside the Commission, not instead of it. And the bureau controls the switch: deletion is an audit of what the bureau asserted, and the most direct remedy remains the bureau cancelling its own notice.
Related
- What is an INTERPOL Red Notice?
- How does INTERPOL check a Red Notice before publishing it?
- What is INTERPOL’s CCF, and what can it do?
- INTERPOL — Constitution of the ICPO-INTERPOL, Articles 26(e), 31, 32 and 33 — interpol.int
- INTERPOL — Rules on the Processing of Data, Articles 1(6), 1(7), 5(5), 5(7), 76, 80, 81, 82 and 84 — interpol.int
- INTERPOL — National Central Bureaus — interpol.int
- INTERPOL — Red Notices: are the individuals wanted by INTERPOL? — interpol.int
- US Department of Justice — INTERPOL Washington, the United States National Central Bureau — justice.gov
- Statute of the CCF, Articles 21, 28(2) and 34 — interpol.int
- CCF Annual Activity Report 2024, paragraphs 61 and 62 — interpol.int
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