Is translation the weak link in your data compliance chain?

What is your company doing to protect customer data?

 

Chances are, a lot. In recent years, the importance of data security has become paramount for every company in every industry around the world. As people spend a growing proportion of time working and playing on digital channels, the volume of data we collectively produce each day has ballooned. Last year, it was estimated that more than 1.1 trillion megabytes of data are created each day, and that number is growing continuously.

 

A massive percentage of the data that proliferates on a daily basis is personal information that internet users share—both knowingly and not—with the world’s companies, governments, and a variety of other organizations. According to Pew research, a majority of Americans believe it’s impossible go through life without relinquishing personal data to companies or governments—and likewise, most feel concerned about the lack of control they can exercise over their own information.

In response to both the world’s growing volume of data and increasing concerns about its proper use, regulatory authorities and governments have instituted important data protection rules and regulations, such as the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Gartner analysts predict that privacy regulations will protect 65% of the global population’s data by 2023.

 

That’s welcome news for concerned consumers—and somewhat daunting for the wide range of companies that engage with customer data on a daily basis. Protecting customer data is a high-stakes endeavour, and failure to do so can result in both sizable fines and reputational damage.

 

Now, as all companies need to comply with an increasing number of data protection regulations, doing so effectively requires an intricate, multi-layered process. Complying with GDPR and other regulations does not end with a published privacy policy on a company’s website; indeed, protecting data impacts huge swaths of additional content, including employment contracts, memos, training materials, and more.

As companies navigate the privacy implications of these various materials, they may not be considering one critical factor: translation. Companies need their content to comply with data privacy regulations everywhere they do business—and for global companies, that means they need their content to comply with these regulations in multiple languages.

 

Without an appropriate plan for compliant translation, companies could find that this is the portal through which they breach customer privacy or fail to comply with regulatory requirements. To maintain compliance, companies need a plan—first, to ensure the quality of the translations themselves, and second, to ensure security during the translation process.

Forward-thinking companies would be wise to consider proactively translating their privacy policies and other documentation into multiple languages. It’s mandated, for example, that companies that conduct business in EU member states must be GDPR-compliant, even if those companies are not themselves based in the EU. As more similar regulation arises, companies that have not prioritized translation will find themselves falling behind. 

 

It's critical, then, that companies work with experienced translators who can provide high-quality, accurate translations for this seminal content. While businesses might rely on free online translation tools for low-impact content, privacy-related materials are far too important and necessitate the review of a real human translator with experience translating complex legal documents and policies. Moreover, companies should consider translation providers with substantial GDPR-related experience. Over the past five-plus years, LSPs like RWS have undertaken a growing volume of privacy and GDPR-related work as GDPR came into force and propagated across the world.

Another reason to avoid lower-quality online translations? Open cloud-based translation tools threaten the leak of sensitive, confidential, or personal information to the outside world.

 

Instead, companies should ensure that best-in-class security processes and procedures underpin translation work. For example, RWS’ ISO-certified translation workflow allows organizations to automate control of their most sensitive, confidential, or personal data, regardless of who creates their original content. What’s more, RWS’ language technology products are secure by design, endowed with enterprise-grade security and reliability.

 

These products comply with GDPR and other privacy regulations by ensuring no content is retained, shared, or reused; provide transparent access control with role-based privilege models; and offer HTTPS protocols to provide encrypted communication and secure transmission. When clients take advantage of RWS’ machine translation technology, they can choose to work with tools that are deployed on-premise or in a private cloud.

 

No matter where or in what languages you conduct business, it’s important to ensure that translation is a solid part of your data compliance process. By working with an experienced, compliant LSP like RWS, businesses can rest assured that their important privacy-related documentation is not only translated accurately—it’s also securely protected.

 

Contact us today to learn more about how RWS can help translate your privacy policies and other data protection materials. You can also find out more about our language solutions for the legal sector here.