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The Commission for the Control of INTERPOL’s Files (CCF) has confirmed that it will meet from 8 to 10 December 2026 for its 138th session. When the Commission reorganised its working year for 2026, it kept a December sitting in reserve, to be used only if the caseload required it. INTERPOL’s CCF sessions page now lists it, so the reserve is being used. For anyone waiting on a Red Notice decision, that is one more chance of an answer before the year ends.
Until this year the CCF usually met four times a year, for about five days each time. In 2026 it is trialling three sessions of nearly two weeks: 28 January to 10 February, 3 to 16 June, and 30 September to 13 October. Alongside the longer sittings, members are doing more of their case review remotely, and the Rapporteur and Chairperson have wider authority to dispose of suitable non-complex cases themselves. The General Assembly has also raised the number of days members may work each year from 26 to 80 (125 for the Chairperson).
The point of all this is to spread decisions more evenly through the year. The CCF has been open about being behind. Its Chairperson, Teresa McHenry, told the 93rd General Assembly in Marrakech in November 2025 that delays would get worse before they got better.
A session is where the Commission’s part-time members, elected by the General Assembly, meet in private to deliberate and adopt conclusions on individual requests. Rule 16 of the CCF Operating Rules, last amended on 26 March 2026, provides for sessions to be held in camera at INTERPOL’s headquarters in Lyon, with members able to join remotely where necessary.
Individual cases are decided by the Requests Chamber, which has five members and a quorum of three. It decides admissibility first, and that date matters, because the Statute’s time limits run from it. It then decides whether the data complies with INTERPOL’s rules. If it does not, the General Secretariat is bound to delete or correct it.
Most conclusions are still reached in session. Rule 19(3) allows them between sessions where that is necessary and feasible, though, and rapporteurs appointed under Rule 10 can decide cases between sittings for their Chamber. With fewer sittings in the year, that route carries more weight than it used to, and a straightforward case no longer has to wait for the full Commission to convene.
The CCF Statute allows four months for an access request and nine months for a deletion request, in each case counted from the date the request is declared admissible. The Commission’s 2024 activity report shows how often those limits slip. Only 30 per cent of access requests were answered within four months, and about 70 per cent of deletion requests were decided within nine.
Longer sessions may let more cases through each cycle, though nobody should read the pilot as a guarantee that a particular case will move faster. The practical question for an applicant is which session their case will reach. After December, the next is listed for the week of 15 February 2027. A case that is not ready for December is unlikely to be decided before then.
The Commission’s membership is also about to change. All seven seats are being filled at the 94th General Assembly in Hong Kong, and the new members take office on 11 March 2027. Cases decided in February will be decided by the current Commission. Anything that slips past that may come before a differently composed one, and it is too early to say how it will approach the work.
Applicants have deadlines of their own. Rule 27 allows the Commission to set a time limit for further information, and a slow response can mean a case misses the session it was heading for.
Since 26 March 2026, requests, supporting documents and applications for revision have had to be filed through the CCF’s online portal (Rule 25(1)). Other methods are permitted only in exceptional cases and with the Commission’s agreement, and using the portal is a condition of admissibility under Rule 30(1). Applicants and their lawyers can track progress and read correspondence with the Commission there. We wrote about the launch in Developments from the CCF: Online Portal Launch.
Two requirements catch people out. Requests have to be in Arabic, English, French or Spanish. And under Rule 30(8)(a), arguments for correction, deletion or revision are limited to ten pages. In our experience the Commission’s first view of a case tends to stick, and ten pages leaves little room to repair a weak opening.
Timing is now part of running a CCF case. An application needs to be complete and admissible early enough to reach the next session, with the strongest points made inside the page limit and any follow-up questions answered promptly. Our guide on how to challenge and remove a Red Notice sets out the grounds, Remove a Red Notice explains the process, and our analysis of CCF Decision No 1 (2026) shows how the Commission applies them.
The new calendar will not clear the backlog by itself, but it does favour applicants whose cases are ready when the Commission sits.
To discuss a case in confidence, contact us.
