An INTERPOL Interview — How Does the Notices and Diffusions Task Force Work?
INTERPOL has released an interview with a member of the Notices and Diffusions Task Force (NDTF) — Carla Delle Donne, Notices and Diffusions Taskforce Counsel Coordinator – that offers new insights into, and raises new questions about, the operation of the Task Force.
When asked by the anonymous interviewer about the purpose of the NDTF, Delle Donne responds that the NDTF was created in 2016 to “optimize the review of Notices and Diffusions for compliance with INTERPOL’s Constitution and internal rules and to ensure our Notices and Diffusions are not misused by member countries.”
That is carefully put. The NDTF cannot “ensure” that Notices and Diffusions are not misused, and while the NDTF is certainly an improvement over INTERPOL’s screening procedures prior to 2016, many INTERPOL reformers would disagree that the review process has been “optimize[d].” Delle Donne also omits a key reason the NDTF was created in 2016: as GYH authors have recently demonstrated, the NDTF was part of a wider process of reform that was undertaken in part to shield INTERPOL from potential lawsuits.
Delle Donne notes that, while the NDTF does indeed focus on notices and diffusions, it also reviews for compliance “data recorded in other tools, such as our Stolen and Lost Travel Documents database.” Though it’s clear that INTERPOL’s rules apply to all activities in INTERPOL’s network, Delle Donne has usefully put on record that it is the NDTF that reviews instruments such as the often-abused Travel Documents database. What Delle Donne’s statement does not explain, however, is how the NDTF decides when to review data recorded in the Travel Documents database, as given the millions of records in the database, the NDTF cannot hope to review effectively every entry made in it.
Returning to the theme of notice and diffusion review, Delle Donne states that the NDTF reviews “the data contained in all Notice and Diffusion requests . . . with a particular focus on accuracy and the inclusion of necessary data.” The latter phase – “inclusion of necessary data” – alludes to the important point that a significant part of the NDTF review is simply an administrative compliance check.
Unfortunately, Delle Donne’s comment that “all” requests are reviewed was not clear about the important question of when the review takes place: in 2024, for example, INTERPOL, after pressure from the New York Times and others, began to review Blue and Green as well as Red Notices prior to publication. This was an important step, and INTERPOL deserves credit for taking it. It would seem that other colored notices are still only reviewed after the fact.
The question of “accuracy” relates to the final question put to Della Donne, about the sources of INTERPOL’s information. Della Donna notes that all “other INTERPOL databases” are checked first, and that this may reveal that the subject of the requested Red Notice is “already the subject of a previous non-compliant Red Notice request, for example.” INTERPOL has often been criticized for being vulnerable to repeated abusive requests against the same individual, and it is useful to have confirmation that the NDTF considers this issue – though Della Donna does not state that the NDTF will definitely refuse to publish a new Red Notice on an individual if a previous one was found to be non-compliant. The wider problem is that, while the NDTF looks at the information it has received from its member states, or that is in the public domain, it will often be in the position of having no data that would justify a refusal to publish a Red Notice.
Della Donna discloses the existence inside the NDTF of a “corrective measures cluster,” which “look[s] into possible misuse of INTERPOL’s information system, including Notices, by member countries, particularly when we see high rates or repetitive patterns of non-compliance.” GYH authors recently examined aspects of the corrective measures system for the Harvard International Law Journal, criticizing its lack of transparency.
But perhaps Della Donna’s most significant comment is that the NDTF has “also retroactively reviewed the Notices issued before the creation of the NDTF.” If the past tense “reviewed” was used intentionally, this would seem to indicate that the NDTF has finally completed its retrospective review of the many thousands of Red Notices that were on file as of 2016. If so, a formal statement to that effect, coupled with statistics on what the NDTF found in that review, would be a welcome follow-up to Della Donna’s interview.stallment next week, where we will discuss engaging INTERPOL experts to identify patterns of misuse and misconduct, provide country-specific context, and strengthen challenges to Red Notices in immigration court and before the CCF.
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*Disclaimer: This information is presented for the purposes of general education and does not constitute legal advice.
