Respect for Privacy: What Recipe to Use on the Old Continent?
The General Data Protection Regulation establishes the legal framework for the processing of personal data of people living in the European Economic Area. Do you still need help completing your compliance journey? Click here for a list of valuable resources that I personally used to comply with the regulation and to complete several GDPR-related translation projects. Be sure to check it regularly as I may update it from time to time.
Records of processing activities
- Privacy notices/statements/policies
- Binding corporate rules
Codes of conduct
Up-to-date contracts between controllers and processors
Linguistic Challenges in Complying with the Regulation
Even though it is a “regulation,” the GDPR contains numerous clauses known as “opening” clauses, under which Member States of the European Union may adopt more flexible or stricter national rules. Most of the time, these rules only exist in the official language(s) of the country concerned but are applicable to all actors carrying out their activities within that country.
The challenges are therefore twofold from a linguistic perspective:
On one hand, full compliance with this regulation requires that every member of your organization and your business partners have a good understanding of the technical and organizational measures implemented to protect personal data processed by your organization.
On the other hand, it is important that you know the specific rules applicable to the target market, but you probably don’t have a lawyer and a data protection consultant in each country where you do business.
A Solution off the Beaten Path
If you need translation services to manage your business internationally, what would you say to using a privacy translator? Of course, this would in no way take the place of a lawyer in your target market but could nevertheless provide you with significant advantages. Here is what I can offer you:
Access to information that you need to succeed in your target market: you receive annotated translations that point out any discrepancies between the practices that you are considering and those that are expected in your target market. In this way, you can conduct your own risk analysis and decide upon the potential risks of non-compliance that you are willing to tolerate;
In-depth knowledge of the GDPR as evidenced by my CIPP/E certification;
Fully transparent teamwork with other legal translators specializing in other language combinations if you have multilingual needs;
Potential collaboration with another linguist for each language pair used if you would like to have the translations reviewed by a third party but your organization does not have sufficient resources to do it in-house;
The option of addressing questions to other data protection experts who, like me, are members of the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP);
Contact with legal experts, consultants, technical experts or representatives as defined by Article 27 of the GDPR if you request this;
Tips on managing your contracts across multiple languages.
You will also benefit from:
Emphasis on quality writing;
Transparent pricing and deadlines;
Services tailored to your needs;
Proven quality control;
Protection of your data by design and default;
My case study, which will help you ensure compliance with the GDPR for any translation project that falls within the scope of this regulation.
“We’ve been cooperating with Monique Longton since April 2007 and are very satisfied with the quality of her work. Monique is not only good at translating, but also keen on learning new processes and always strives to have the knowledge that properly fits our end customers’ needs. Just recently, we’ve been counting on Monique to translate the GDPR policy of two of our major customers, and the quality of the translations delivered clearly showed Monique is a subject-matter expert. I definitely recommend Monique’s services, should you need a reliable GDPR policy that reads fluently and makes sense in French!”
Emmanuelle Neves, Global Partner Manager, Xplanation Language Services
