Confidentiality of information is a common concern and a fundamental part of doing business in this day and age. Confidentiality is essential to language translation services and a critical consideration in the translation industry. It involves guarding the sensitive and private information in the documents or translated content.
Being a professional translation company comes with many responsibilities; chief among them is the ethical duty to protect client’s privacy. Confidentiality is a vital part of a professional translator’s duties and of all the team working in a translation agency where legal matters, HR information, trade secrets, and product details are often seen before they are made public.
Maintaining confidentiality is crucial to building and maintaining clients’ trust and creating the appropriate culture of strict code within the language services company.
Why Confidentiality Matters in Translation Services
Data protection is not just a conversation in the translation industry – it is a more extensive conversation touching every part of business and personal life in our increasingly digital world.
From speech recognition tools and machine translation to artificial intelligence, ChatGPT, and other computer tools, most people spend significant time online. Being online has streamlined how we work, making it easier to collaborate and reach audiences in new markets.
However, being online also comes with an increasing risk of data breaches. A high volume of data is exchanged between clients and the language service provider, and that content is stored and needs to be protected.
In particular, professional translators can deal with sensitive information, from personal identifiers like birth certificates to salary details, bank statements, or private court documents. And this information getting out can have serious repercussions. Information leaked from a merger document could sink an international business deal, and private details from a divorce can ruin a reputation. Your translator must take your privacy seriously.
Privacy in Certified Translation Services
A certified translation is a translated document with a sworn statement from the professional translation service attesting to the accuracy of the translation and the translator’s knowledge. Certified translations may be required in legal proceedings, medical appointments, and when dealing with government entities – all situations where private data may be disclosed.
Many certified translations contain confidential information, and you need to know your translation agency takes that responsibility seriously.
Professional Language Companies’ Responsibility to Privacy
Upholding confidentiality not only safeguards sensitive information but also preserves the reputation and integrity of the translation industry.
Professional translators are responsible for upholding their clients’ privacy and confidentiality. The code of ethics establishes that all professional translators must adhere to it, as established by organizations like the American Translators Association (ATA) and the European Legal Interpreters and Translators Association.
But there are also legal instances where a translator must uphold a client’s confidentiality. This is the case for a translator dealing with sensitive medical documents or one translating documents for an ongoing court case. Breaching this confidentiality is a serious infraction and one not taken lightly in the translation community. Violating their ethical responsibilities can result in professional consequences, like losing certificates or licenses.
Subjects Influenced by Confidentiality
- Maintaining Business Relationships: In the corporate world, businesses often rely on translation services for sensitive documents related to mergers and acquisitions, financial reports, or legal agreements. Breaching confidentiality in such situations can harm business relationships and lead to legal disputes. It affects the translation company’s reputation and the trust of its clients.
- Client Trust: For clients, knowing that their susceptible data is safe and will not be disclosed without their consent is paramount to building and maintaining their trust. Clients expect accurate translation and security while their documents are translated.
- Risk Mitigation: Confidentiality breaches can have severe consequences, including financial penalties and damage to an organization’s reputation. Translation service providers take steps to mitigate these risks by implementing strict confidentiality policies and procedures.
- Secure Handling of Documents: Language translation services employ various security measures to safeguard confidential information. This includes using secure file transfer methods, encryption, and password protection to prevent unauthorized document access. That also extends to their installation, servers, and IT security.
- Non-disclosure Agreements (NDAs): Many clients request a signed non-disclosure agreement before exchanging information and files. These legally binding agreements outline the translation company’s responsibilities regarding confidentiality and the consequences of infringements.
- Access Control: Language service providers limit access to confidential documents to authorized personnel. The team working on the translation services projects, including translators, designers, localization engineers, and project managers, are trained to handle sensitive information responsibly and know the significance of maintaining confidentiality and data security.
- Data Storage and Retention of Files: Translation service providers have policies for the secure storage and eventual deletion of client documents once the translation project is completed. These policies ensure that sensitive information is not retained longer than necessary.
- Ongoing Training of Personnel: Language service professionals receive training on confidentiality and best practices for maintaining it. This includes guidance on secure communication, document handling, and data protection.
How to Approach Confidentiality with Your Professional Translation Firm
In addition to asking questions to vet your potential expert capabilities, there are several questions that clients should ask to gauge how strong a translation firm’s confidentiality protections are.
You can inquire about the firm’s firewall and internet connection protections, how secure files are transferred, and how to keep your translation management system or term glossary separate from other clients. You may want to know what kind of computer translation tools the firm uses to ensure any information entered into these tools is kept proprietary and not stored in an unsecured cloud storage.
You may also want to know if physical copies of your documents are saved, or if digital copies are stored somewhere. Some clients want to know that their information is destroyed after the project’s completion. But other clients appreciate having access to translation files months or even years down the road, so long as this information is securely stored.
Preserving Confidentiality in Translation Services
So, how can a professional translator (or their respective agency) ensure data protection?
Protection of computers
This can be done in many ways. All computers should always be password protected, and two-factor authentication should be enabled whenever offered.
Processes should be in place to store information on servers and not on computers. A firewall subscription and antivirus software are essential to reduce the risk of being hacked. Unfortunately, hackers are an increasingly common risk for businesses and individuals.
Using a Virtual Private Network, or VPN is another best practice for translators and all personnel, especially when working on unsecured Wi-Fi networks, like in airports.
Avoid Open Source and Free Translation Tools
ChatGPT made headlines this year for its remarkable research and response capabilities. But ChatGPT has open-sourced coding, which means it can be accessed by anyone (with the proper coding knowledge.) ChatGPT also uses the information you give to train the AI response model, meaning the information you give is not confidential. Some computer tools offer stronger data protection than others, and ChatGPT doesn’t offer much.
Many good translation memory systems and machine translation tools are available for translators that don’t require storing information in a cloud or trading convenience for data. (Google Translate is not one of them.)
Your translation firm should be able to answer any questions about the translation tools they use and the steps they take to protect your data.
Some translation agencies use speech recognition tools to streamline meetings and the translation process. These tools are almost always web-based, and you should be informed of the risks before your translation company uses one of these tools on your translation.
Sign Non-Disclosure Agreements
NDAs are standard practice for translation firms, and most are ready to sign before starting work to translate documents. While translation services companies always have an ethical responsibility to protect their client’s privacy, having a signed NDA can be helpful for clients with higher rates of sensitive data, knowing the legal responsibilities of confidentiality and the consequences of failure are spelled out.
Confidentiality in Interpretation Services
Confidentiality is a fundamental principle of both translation and interpretation services. Maintaining the privacy and security of sensitive information received during translation and interpretation services is crucial to providing good customer service.
Many situations where interpretation services are needed to overcome language barriers contain private information, from medical visits to legal counsel. It only takes one minor data breach to shatter customer confidence.
Like translators, professional interpreters are tied to a standard of ethics and professionalism. These ethics are not arbitrary but established by organizations experts in the matter like the Association of Conference Interpreters (AIIC), and every interpreter is duty-bound to uphold them, including maintaining confidentiality. Additionally, many interpreters are legally bound to uphold confidentiality, whether by Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) standards, attorney-client privilege, or protecting trade secrets.
In conclusion, confidentiality is a cornerstone for language services companies. It is essential for building and maintaining trust with clients, complying with legal and ethical obligations, and protecting the privacy of individuals and organizations. Language service providers take various measures to ensure the confidentiality of the information and content they translate, including secure handling of documents, non-disclosure agreements, and ongoing training for their personnel.
Looking for a language services provider that takes your privacy seriously? JR Language Translation Services works with companies worldwide, translating confidential information and providing high-quality services at affordable prices and fast turnaround times. We take every measure to secure your information.
Contact our language translation company for a translation or interpretation services quote, and let us know your requirements— we’d love to work with you.
