Named in a record? Here is what you’re entitled to.

Allegations, investigations, charges, cases, findings, convictions, dismissals, acquittals and reversals are kept visibly apart.

Nobody is presented as guilty because they have been accused, charged, sued or investigated. If no final decision exists, the record says so plainly.

Before publishing material adverse reporting, we normally contact the person or company concerned for comment, where that is reasonably practical and appropriate.

We give enough detail for you to understand what you are being asked to answer, and we consider relevant replies and documents before we publish.

Not replying is never treated as an admission or as evidence of wrongdoing.

You can send us evidence about a record, for example:

Your evidence goes through the same checks as any other source.

Point to a statement you believe is wrong, incomplete or misleading and ask us to review it. Please tell us:

• which record;
• which statement;
• why you dispute it; and
• what evidence supports you.

We may check your material independently before deciding whether to correct, clarify, amend or take other action.

Developments that change what a record means are taken into account. Where verified and relevant, these include:

When later events change the status of earlier reporting, the record is reviewed and updated.

Statements in complaints, charge sheets, lawsuits, interviews or other sources are never presented as proven just because they appear in official papers.

Where readers need to know who made a claim or a decision in order to judge it, we name them. You can challenge attribution that is materially wrong.

We take reasonable steps to tell apart people and companies with similar or identical names, using company numbers, dates, addresses of record and other context rather than a name alone.

If you believe something has been wrongly attached to you, tell us quickly and send enough identifying information to resolve it.

Confirmed mistaken identity is handled as a priority correction.

We may hold information that should never be made public. Personal details are published only when relevant, proportionate, lawful and justified, with particular care over:

Something being online somewhere does not, by itself, justify repeating it.

We handle personal data under the UK General Data Protection Regulation and the Data Protection Act 2018. Those laws give you rights of access, rectification, erasure, restriction and objection, among others.

We normally respond within one month of receiving a valid request. The law allows that period to be extended by up to two further months for complex or numerous requests; if we need to, we will tell you within the first month and explain why.

Some rights can be limited by exemptions, in particular the exemption for journalism, academic, artistic and literary purposes in Schedule 2, Part 5, paragraph 26 of the Data Protection Act 2018, which can apply where publication is in the public interest. We do not claim that every exemption applies to every publication, and we consider each request on its facts.

If you are unhappy with how we handled your data, you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office at ico.org.uk.

You can ask us to remove or restrict material, and each request is weighed on its legal and evidential merits. Possible grounds include:

Reputational discomfort alone does not necessarily mean accurate, lawful, public-interest reporting comes down.

There is no charge to:

• Send a reply
• Challenge a fact
• Provide evidence
• Ask for a correction
• Ask for a grade review
• Ask for removal or restriction

Research Membership has nothing to do with these rights. Payment, membership, status or influence never decides the outcome of a subject request.

You may deal with us through a solicitor or another properly authorised representative. We may ask for reasonable proof of their authority before sharing non-public information or acting on certain requests.

Using a lawyer never counts against you, and it does not oblige us to accept the position they put forward.

You can ask us to treat what you send during a reply or correction as confidential. We will weigh that against the law, our duties to sources, editorial needs and the public interest.

We will not promise absolute confidentiality unless we can legally and practically deliver it.

We do not set a low bar for evidence against someone and a high bar for evidence in their favour.

Verified material showing that allegations were unfounded, a case was dismissed, someone was acquitted, a finding was overturned or something was wrongly attributed is taken just as seriously.

Our job is not to defend an adverse story. It is to keep an accurate record.

We know our records can shape how someone appears in search results. Search visibility does not decide whether accurate public-interest information stays up.

But when the underlying matter has materially changed, our own titles, summaries, metadata and content are updated so they do not keep showing a stale or misleading status. We do not control independent search engines or copies made by others.

Each material matter carries an evidence grade showing its status.

You can ask for a review if you believe a grade no longer reflects the legal or evidential position. Grades change when the evidence justifies it, never as part of a commercial arrangement.

If you believe one of our writers, investigators, researchers or representatives behaved improperly, you can complain about:

Please describe what happened and include supporting information if you have it.

We will not publish adverse material because a subject:

• disputes our reporting;
• asks for a correction;
• instructs a lawyer;
• declines an interview;
• chooses not to comment;
• uses a data-protection right;
• asks for removal; or
• complains in good faith.

None of those is evidence of wrongdoing.

Subject rights work within the law and do not necessarily give anyone control over independent public-interest reporting. Where the law allows, we may decline a request that would require us to:

• say something the evidence does not support;
• hide important public-interest information;
• reveal a protected source;
• disclose privileged or confidential material;
• infringe someone else’s rights;
• ignore a legal obligation; or
• change an accurate record without good reason.

Statutory rights remain subject to the law that governs each particular request.

Many of our records involve more than one country.

For matters published from the United Kingdom, the relevant rules include the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018 for personal data, the Defamation Act 2013 in England and Wales (the Defamation and Malicious Publication (Scotland) Act 2021 in Scotland), and any reporting restrictions imposed by a court.

Matters involving other countries are handled with regard to the law of each country concerned. We do not treat any region as a single legal system.