Named in a record? You have rights.

We keep allegations, investigations, charges, cases, findings, convictions, dismissals, acquittals and reversals clearly apart.

Nobody is presented as guilty just because they have been accused, charged, sued or investigated.

If no final decision has been made, the record says so plainly.

Before publishing material adverse reporting, we normally ask 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 respond to.

We consider relevant responses and supporting documents before we publish.

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

You can send us documents or other evidence about a record, such as:

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

You can 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 the material independently before deciding whether to correct, clarify, amend or take other action.

We take account of developments that change what a record means. Where verified and relevant, these include:

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

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

Where readers need to know who made a claim or a decision to judge it, we say who.

You can challenge attribution that is materially wrong.

We take reasonable steps to tell apart people and companies with similar or identical names.

If you think something has been wrongly attributed to you through mistaken identity, tell us quickly and send enough identifying information to sort it out.

Confirmed mistaken identity is treated as a priority correction.

We may hold information that shouldn’t be made public.

We publish personal information only when it is relevant, proportionate, legally supportable and justified. We take particular care with:

Information being online somewhere doesn’t automatically justify republishing it.

Where data-protection law gives you rights over personal information, we consider properly made requests under the law that governs that processing.

Depending on where you are and the circumstances, those rights can cover access, accuracy, correction, objection, restriction, erasure or other handling of your data.

Those rights can be limited by exemptions — including for journalism, freedom of expression, legal claims, public records and matters of public interest.

We don’t claim every data-protection remedy applies to every publication.

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

Reputational inconvenience alone doesn’t necessarily mean accurate, lawful, public-interest reporting comes down.

We don’t charge anyone to:

• Send a response
• Challenge a fact
• Provide evidence
• Ask for a correction
• Ask for an evidence grade to be reviewed
• 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 can deal with us through a lawyer or another properly authorised representative.

We may ask for reasonable proof of their authority before sharing non-public information or acting on certain requests for someone else.

Using a lawyer never counts against you — and it doesn’t oblige us to accept the position they put forward.

You can ask us to treat material you send during a response or correction as confidential.

We will weigh that against the law, our obligations to sources, editorial needs and the public interest.

We won’t promise absolute confidentiality unless we are legally and practically able to deliver it.

We don’t 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.

We are not here to protect an adverse story. We are here to keep an accurate record.

We know that what we publish can affect how someone appears in search engines and elsewhere.

Search visibility doesn’t decide whether accurate public-interest information stays up.

But when the underlying record has materially changed, we make sure our own titles, summaries, metadata and content don’t keep showing an outdated or misleading status.

We don’t control independent search engines or other people’s copies.

We use evidence grades to show the status of each material matter.

You can ask for a review if you think a grade no longer reflects the legal or evidential position.

Grades change when the evidence justifies it — never as part of a commercial deal.

If you think one of our writers, investigators, researchers or representatives behaved improperly, you can complain. Complaints can be about:

Please describe the conduct and include supporting information if you have it.

We will not publish adverse material just because a subject:

• disputes our reporting;
• asks for a correction;
• hires a lawyer;
• refuses an interview;
• declines to comment;
• uses a data-protection right;
• asks for removal; or
• makes a good-faith complaint.

None of that shows wrongdoing.

Subject rights operate within the law. They don’t necessarily give anyone control over independent public-interest reporting.

Where the law allows, we may decline requests that would make us:

• say something the evidence doesn’t 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.

Any statutory rights remain subject to the law that governs the particular request.

We work across borders.

In the United States, rights and protections can arise under the First Amendment, state defamation and privacy law, public-records law and other federal or state rules.

Where UK law applies, relevant rules can include the UK GDPR, the Data Protection Act 2018, the Defamation Act 2013, human-rights principles on privacy and free expression, and court-reporting rules.

Matters involving Asian jurisdictions are handled under the law of the specific country. We don’t treat Asia as one legal system.