He was being stopped and questioned at airports, and he told the Commission that an alert circulated about him worldwide was out of all proportion to the modest thing it was said to be for: obtaining information and finding out where he lived. The Commission’s answer contains the single most useful sentence an applicant in this position can hold: data of that kind should not stop anyone at a border, and should neither prevent nor delay their movement.
What proportionality means in these rules
Two provisions worked together. One limits data in the system to a given, explicit purpose consistent with the Organization’s aims; the other requires that data be accurate, relevant and — the word that mattered here — not excessive in relation to that purpose. Together they create a genuine proportionality control, and applicants are right to reach for it.
The Commission first confirmed that the purposes recorded were among those the rules authorise: locating him, and obtaining information relevant to an investigation. It then turned to impact, and drew a distinction that decides most border complaints. An alert of this kind is an invitation to the authorities of member countries to share information with the requesting bureau. It carries no request for arrest, no request for detention and no instruction to prevent travel.
Which means the border trouble was real but misdirected
The Commission did not doubt that he was having difficulties when he crossed frontiers. What it held was that those difficulties do not follow from the instrument as the rules define it, and it added the general point about freedom of movement: the right to leave a country and to return to one’s own is a principle that admits lawful, necessary and proportionate limitations, and sovereign states remain free to set conditions for entry to their territory. The mere existence of a valid notice or diffusion does not infringe the right.
- If you are stopped for hours, the practical question is what the officer’s screen actually said and which authority acted on it — not whether the alert exists.
- A record of the stops themselves — dates, places, what you were told, how long it lasted — is the evidence that turns a complaint into a case about how the data are being used.
- Where the treatment goes beyond what the instrument authorises, the argument is available: excessive impact in relation to purpose is a ground written into the rules.
- Where the treatment is simply an immigration decision by a state entitled to make it, the argument fails, and this is where most such requests end.
The two answers the bureau gave, and why they held
He also argued that entering data about him without ever telling him or serving him with anything breached his rights, and that any investigation or trial in his absence would compound it. The requesting bureau replied bluntly on the first point: law enforcement agencies are not required to seek a suspect’s approval before entering data in policing databases, and no rule obliged it to notify him. On the second it gave an assurance that neither the police nor the courts were seeking or intending to progress a prosecution in his absence.
Both answers were accepted. The lesson is not that notification never matters — it does, in cases where a trial may proceed without the accused — but that the absence of notification is not itself a defect in the data, and that an assurance recorded in the file is worth obtaining because it constrains what the requesting authorities can do next.
What is worth doing while the alert exists
A decision like this one is more useful as a plan than as a precedent. Three things follow from it directly. Ask for the file: an access request produces the extract that tells you what instrument exists, what purpose is recorded and which bureau asked for it, and until you have that you are arguing about something you have not read. Keep the assurances: where a bureau states that no prosecution in absence is intended, or that it seeks only your location, that statement is on the record and can be held against a later change of course.
Third, separate the two complaints. If the difficulty is what a border service does when your name appears, that is a complaint about the use of the data, supported by your log of stops. If the difficulty is that the alert exists at all, that is a challenge to the data, and it needs a ground — purpose, accuracy, seriousness, the character of the case — rather than a description of consequences. Requests that mix the two tend to be answered on the weaker half.
What this decision teaches
- Know what your alert authorises. An information-and-location alert is not an arrest request, and saying so, with the rules cited, is often more useful at a border than any legal argument.
- Proportionality is measured against purpose, not against inconvenience. The question is whether the data go beyond what the stated purpose needs, not how much the alert costs you.
- Immigration decisions are not INTERPOL decisions. A state that refuses you entry is exercising its own power, and the Commission will not treat that as misuse of the data.
- Nobody has to warn you first. Expect the file to have existed for a while before you learned of it, and treat the request for access as the first step rather than a grievance.
This page is based on one of our own decisions. The countries, the authorities, the offence and the dates are not given; the Commission’s reasoning is set out as it stands.
If you are being held up at borders, keep a log from today: date, airport, questions asked, duration, and the name of the service that dealt with you. That record does more for a future request than any description of how the alert feels. Send us the first three entries and we will tell you what they show.
Border stops and proportionality
Can a Blue Notice stop me at the border?
It is not supposed to. The Commission has stated that data of this kind are only an invitation to share information with the requesting bureau, and should neither stop a person at an international border nor prevent or delay their movement.
Does an INTERPOL notice breach my right to travel?
Not by its mere existence. Freedom of movement is a general principle subject to lawful and proportionate limitations, and states remain entitled to set the conditions on which people enter their territory.
Should the police have told me before entering my data?
No rule requires it. Bureaux are not obliged to seek a person’s approval or to notify them before recording data in police databases, which is why most people discover a file only when it affects them.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. For advice specific to your situation, please consult a qualified lawyer.