A Red Notice can be deleted where the offence is not serious enough to justify international police cooperation. INTERPOL reserves Red Notices for serious ordinary-law crime, and the Commission will assess the gravity of the conduct, the harm actually caused and whether the matter is of genuine international interest.
The seriousness threshold and where it sits
The requirement comes from Article 83 of the Rules on the Processing of Data, read with INTERPOL’s policy on the minimum gravity of offences. Not every criminal charge, however properly brought at home, warrants a global alert.
The Commission looks at the concrete damage caused rather than the maximum penalty available in the national code.
How gravity has been assessed
The Commission for the Control of INTERPOL’s Files publishes extracts of its decisions. In our reading of the published corpus, 6 decisions turn on this ground, and the data were deleted or blocked in 3 of them. Each decision below links to the full text on our data quality and seriousness page, where the reasoning is set out in detail.
- Gravity is measured by actual harm. The theft and resale of a mobile phone by a young adult, with no serious concrete damage to any public or private interest, did not meet the threshold and the data were deleted.
- Purpose can expire. Yellow Notices lost their purpose once the other country had confirmed the children’s location and their status.
- But properly documented proceedings survive. Where copies of all five court decisions showed possible personal participation, proper national procedure and the possibility of a fresh trial, the notice was maintained.
What our record shows on seriousness
This is the strongest ground in our record proportionally, but on the smallest base: 8 decided cases, of which 7 ended in deletion. Eight cases cannot support a success rate, and we would not present 88% as one. What the eight do show is that where the alleged harm is genuinely modest and can be quantified, the argument tends to resolve quickly and without much dispute.
Because the numbers here are small on both sides — six published decisions, eight of ours — the wider corpus is the better guide. All 65 decisions are indexed on the catalogue hub.
Aggregate data. No individual client case is described on this page.
What to establish about the alleged harm
- The actual loss or harm alleged, in figures, set against the seriousness threshold.
- Whether the conduct would be prosecuted as a serious crime in other jurisdictions or is essentially regulatory.
- Whether the notice still serves any purpose — if its objective has already been achieved, that is a separate and often simpler argument.
- This is the strongest ground in our own record, though the sample is small: 7 deletions in 8 decided cases. Read that as an indication, not a probability — eight cases is too few to generalise from.
If the sum involved is small, the argument is largely arithmetic and documentary: what was the actual loss, who bore it, and what wider interest is served by a global alert. That is a short analysis to run. Send us the charge and the figures and we will tell you whether the threshold argument is worth making on its own.
Questions about minor offences and Red Notices
The amount involved is small. Is that enough?
It is the starting point, not the whole argument. The Commission looks at the concrete damage to public or private interests. A modest sum combined with an absence of any wider harm is what succeeded in the published decisions.
Can a notice be deleted just because it has served its purpose?
Yes, and it is a distinct ground. Where the objective of the notice has been achieved — a person located, children found — the data no longer meet the conditions for retention.
Why is your success rate on this ground higher than the published corpus?
Because of how few cases there are on each side. Six published decisions and eight of ours are small samples, and we would not draw a conclusion from the difference.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. For advice specific to your situation, please consult a qualified lawyer.