The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) goes into effect in the European Union this week (on May 25). With these changes, data privacy protections are increasing substantially, as are the penalties for companies not in compliance.
Linguistic Systems has been working hard to ensure that our clients, translators, and producers who hold European data are informed and ready. Here are some highlights of how the new regulations will affect our translation processes, along with other strong protections we’ve had in place for many years.
Rights of European Union Clients
Under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), as a European Union resident, you have the following data privacy rights:
- Opt-in consent: When you complete our project agreement (1) or an email marketing opt-in form (2), you understand and acknowledge that we may collect and hold your data for the purpose of communicating with you about your project (1) or about LSI services or offers (2).
- Right to access and data portability: You may request from us a copy of your data.
- Right to rectification/correction: You may request from us correction of your data.
- Right to erasure/right to be forgotten: You may request from us erasure of your data, as permissible by law.
- Right to breach notification: You have a right to be notified by us within 72 hours of a data breach we deem may pose a risk to your rights and freedoms as an individual.
- Right to launch a complaint: You have the right to launch a complaint with your local supervisory authority, if you believe our handling of your data poses a risk to your rights and freedoms as an individual.
Data Security Best Practices
Even if you’re not in Europe, Linguistic Systems has always taken data privacy and security seriously. When your project enters our production process and data processing chain, we require all of our processors to maintain the confidentiality of the data and to follow basic data security best-practices. These include safeguarding the data from unauthorized access and accidental destruction or loss.
Rest assured, we do not use your data for any other purpose than to process and bill your job. And we do not submit your source material to any other third party or for any other purpose. Linguistic Systems is fully compliant with local, national and international data privacy regulations and we can customize our data security approach to match your company’s needs. We’ve worked hard to earn and maintain ISO certification related to the following three areas.
ISO 9001 – Certifies a company has a fully implemented quality management system. To maintain our certification, our workflows and quality management processes are subject to yearly internal and third-party audits, verifying that we continue to meet the requirements of the standard, including the requirement to monitor and continuously improve our service and customer satisfaction.
ISO 17100 – Certifies that as a language services company, we maintain a fully implemented translation quality management system. The requirements of this standard focus on ensuring the competency of translators and editors, and on the adequacy of verification processes to ensure quality in translations.
ISO 27001 – Certifies that we maintain a fully implemented information security management system. Linguistic Systems is transparent with auditors, and our processes offer data management at the highest levels.
We also make every effort to understand and adequately mitigate data security risks inherent in the language-conversion activities we undertake. With Linguistic Systems’ adherence to these ISO certifications, ongoing best practices, and new GDPR compliance efforts, you can rest assured that your project documents and personal data are being cared for. Your data is safe and sound with us.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Linguistic Systems uses a combination of advanced proprietary technology and 7,500 skilled, certified translators to deliver high-quality translations in 120+ languages. With 50+ years and billions of words of experience serving 25,000 clients, including many Fortune 100 and AmLaw100 firms, you can trust us with your foreign language translations.
