How your documents are handled

An NDA can be signed before you send anything at all. If you have your own, send it. If you would rather I supply one, ask and you will have it the same day.

Most projects are mine alone. Some, particularly multi step medical workflows, need other linguists, a reviewing clinician, or an interviewer. Every one of them signs an equivalent non disclosure agreement before they see any client material. That obligation flows down from whatever I have signed with you, and it does not lapse when the project ends.

I will tell you who is involved in a project if you ask. I will not name other clients to you, in the same way I will not name you to them.

• Files are accepted through your own portal or secure transfer where you have one. I would rather use your system than ask you to use mine.
• Working files stay on encrypted local storage, not on shared drives or public cloud folders.
• Machine translation engines are not used on confidential material unless you have asked for post editing and named the engine. Nothing is pasted into a public tool.
• Source and target files are deleted on your instruction, or retained for the period your agreement specifies so that a translation memory stays useful to you. Tell me which you want.

I work regularly with documents that sit under HIPAA in the United States and the GDPR in Europe, and with sponsors who apply their own stricter internal rules. I am not making a certification claim here, because there is none to make. What I can tell you is that I will work to your data handling requirements, sign what your legal team needs signed, and tell you plainly if something you have asked for is outside what I can do.

Where a project includes cognitive debriefing, the work runs under your protocol and your approvals, using your consent form, with signed copies returned to you. I do not hold ethics approvals independently, and a vendor in my position is not expected to.

The debriefing itself is linguistic. It tests whether the wording is understood as intended. No clinical or medical data is collected. Participant contact details and consent records are held only for as long as you need them and are disposed of on your instruction.

Personal documents sent for certified translation, birth and marriage certificates, diplomas, police records, are held only until the certified translation is delivered and any correction period has passed, then deleted. The signed certificate of accuracy carries my registered business address, so you have a real party to hold responsible. A specimen certificate is on the certified translation page, with client details blocked out.