Legal Strategies
If one is listed on LSEG’s World-Check (“World-Check”), the impact can be immediate: frozen accounts, delayed transactions and reputational harm. Removal or correction is possible, however, one needs a structured plan that uses your data rights, engages World-Check correctly, and stabilises banking relationships. In the UK and EU, one can request access, rectification, objection, and erasure, although these rights are not absolute and must be weighed against public-interest processing. This guide explains how World-Check works, the legal levers available, and a step-by-step playbook to fix inaccurate or outdated entries and limit collateral damage.
Banks and professional service firms screen clients against risk databases to meet KYC, AML and sanctions obligations. World-Check is one of the most widely used. It compiles public-domain information on sanctions, PEPs, law-enforcement listings and adverse media, then distributes structured profiles that clients refresh daily or even twice daily. A negative entry can ripple through global counterparties in hours.
How World-Check actually works
World-Check aggregates public-domain data and feeds it to its customers, ultimately operating as a screening tool for banks and financial institutions. Often, banks treat the dispersed information as definitive and fail to conduct their own independent checks to verify what has been provided.
Why this matters to you
An inaccurate, outdated, or misleading World-Check entry can place a person at risk without any formal notice or chance to explain. Because banks rely heavily and sometimes uncritically on this data to meet regulatory obligations, a flawed profile can trigger automatic risk alerts that affect you long before anyone investigates the underlying facts.
Can you get removed, or just corrected? Your legal rights
Under UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018 there are several rights:
- Access. Ask if World-Check holds a profile on the person and request a copy.
- Rectification. Require inaccurate or incomplete data to be corrected.
- Objection. Object to processing based on legitimate interests, including profiling, unless the controller can demonstrate compelling legitimate grounds which override your interests, rights and freedoms.
- Erasure. Request deletion in defined circumstances, although there are important exemptions where processing is necessary for compliance or public-interest reasons.World-Check’s privacy materials confirm these avenues and note that requests may be refused in part where lawful grounds for retaining data exist. In practice, however, pursuing these rights requires proactive steps to challenge and counter the inaccurate information. World-Check may also require supporting evidence demonstrating that the allegations are incorrect and to submit any accurate data needed to rectify the record.
Important limits
If a person is on a live sanctions list or holds a current PEP role, outright erasure is unlikely. The more realistic aim is to ensure accuracy, context and timeliness, then monitor for removal when circumstances change.
These rights must be exercised carefully, recognising that data controllers are entitled to balance privacy interests against legitimate public-interest objectives.
The playbook: correct or remove entries on your World-Check profile
Step 1. Confirm if you are listed and get your file
Begin by contacting World-Check through its designated email or DSAR portal to request a copy of any profile held as well as any appropriate evidence or sources that have been used in the process of its formation. This allows to review the information associated with the name, or with any corporate entity under the control of the relevant person, along with the underlying sources relied upon.
World-Check will first seek to verify the identity and will then issue a full report, including all data points and the source materials used to categorise the relevant person.
If any element of the profile is inaccurate, incomplete, or misleading, one is entitled to request its correction and, where appropriate, its deletion.
Step 2. Diagnose the error and assemble evidence
Typical issues include mistaken identity, outdated or unresolved allegations, incomplete reports that fail to mention subsequent successful outcomes, or information adversely presented and dispersed through the media, without proper context.
It is important to prepare a structured evidence pack to rebut any inaccuracies, which may include court judgments, prosecutorial decisions, company filings, or official correspondence. Providing clear and well-organised evidence alongside a covering letter explaining the relevant facts and circumstances will strengthen the request.
Where the supporting documents contain sensitive information, it is possible to redact confidential sections, provided that the key findings and the outcome remain visible and clearly support the position.
Step 3. Make a targeted rights request
Write to contact@world-check.com and make a rectification request where facts are wrong or incomplete; or make an erasure request where the inclusion is wrong or unlawful.
Step 4. Manage timelines and escalation
When submitting the request, you may set a reasonable response deadline, typically 14 days, which controllers (i.e. World-Check) should meet as part of their good-faith compliance efforts.
As a general rule, controllers must respond without undue delay and, in any event, within one month, extendable by an additional two months for complex cases.
It is good practice to maintain a dated log of all correspondence. If you receive no response or are dissatisfied with the outcome, you may escalate the matter to the ICO, which can intervene to help resolve the dispute.
Step 5. Notify counterparties
World-Check data can update multiple times per day, but counterparties refresh feeds on different cycles.
It is therefore sensible to proactively send corrected excerpts or confirmation correspondence from World-Check to relevant banks and advisors and request that they re-screen you following the update.
Step 6. Consider litigation if harm persists
If demonstrably false and harmful statements remain, legal routes include:
Data protection claims for material loss or distress under Article 82 UK GDPR and sections 168-169 DPA 2018. The ICO notes you may seek compensation through the courts, although the ICO cannot award it.
Defamation where publication causes serious harm. Finsbury Park Mosque obtained an apology and damages after being wrongly categorised in World-Check, illustrating the viability of defamation claims in appropriate cases.
Working with a specialist on this will assist in weighing up the risks, costs and settlement options.
If you need a confidential assessment of your World-Check exposure and a concrete remediation plan, our cross-border disputes and reputation team can help.
