Dismantling the Tools ofreport Oppression INTERPOL 2018 70. Even though Nikita’s Diffusion has been deleted, questions remain as to whether INTERPOL will be able to prevent Russia from sending out the same request for his arrest in the future. In the case of Bill Browder, a British financier turned activist, INTERPOL issued a statement in 2013 confirming that Russia’s attempt to request his arrest through INTERPOL had been refused because of the ‘predominantly political nature’ of that request.52 According to reports, this did not prevent Russia from making at least six attempts to seek Browder’s extradition through INTERPOL, as a result of which he has been detained,53 and had his US visa revoked.54 Although INTERPOL have confirmed that Browder has never been subject to a Red Notice, the absence of the Red Notice does not appear to have prevented Russia from sharing information with other countries about him. The suggestion has been made that this was made possible through the use of Diffusions.55 71. As explained, Diffusions are subject to checks, but by the time that these checks take place, the information about the wanted person would have already been shared with police forces across the world. The problems regarding Diffusions are thus similar to those of requests for Red Notices before the recent changes to the i-link system were adopted. If information regarding a wanted person is made accessible to police forces of Member States, this information can be copied or downloaded, and subsequently stored on national police databases, even if INTERPOL advises NCBs not to rely on the information. Currently, INTERPOL does not have effective mechanisms for preventing abusive requests for arrests from entering national databases through its systems by way of Diffusions, and it also has no effective means of deleting or recalling such data from national databases if it has been found to violate INTERPOL’s rules. 72. It is our view that if INTERPOL is unable to ensure that all NCBs will delete a Diffusion from national databases following confirmation from INTERPOL that it is non-compliant, then it must prevent circulation from taking place before a quality control review has been carried out (as it has done with Red Notices). Recommendations for INTERPOL: Review prior to publication INTERPOL should develop more robust mechanisms for ensuring that NCBs comply with instructions to delete a Diffusion from national databases following a General Secretariat decision that it is non-compliant. If INTERPOL is not able to ensure that all NCBs will delete a Diffusion from national databases following confirmation from INTERPOL that it is non-compliant, then INTERPOL must prevent circulation of Diffusions from taking place before a quality control review has been carried out. ii) Improved quality control 73. Welcome as it is, the introduction of prior review of all Red Notices remains meaningless if the prior review itself is ineffective. In order to improve quality control at this stage, INTERPOL set up a special task force, known as the ‘Notices and Diffusions Task Force’ (‘NDTF’) in 2016, whose role is to check INTERPOL notices Ronald K. Noble, ‘INTERPOL makes the world a safer place; Far from showing the need for reform, the recent case of William Browder highlights how INTERPOL protects individuals and its member states’, The Telegraph, 28 May 2013 53 Ellen Barry and Raphael Minder, ‘Bill Browder, a Putin Critic, Live-Tweets his Arrest in Spain’, The New York Times, 30 May 2018 54 Andrew E Kramer, ‘US Clears Bill Browder to Enter, Rebuking Russia’, The New York Times, 23 October 2017 55 Barry and Minder (n 5 52 33