Every time you turn around, it seems like there’s another data breach in the news. Even tech giants like Facebook and Google are affected. To protect your business, you have to keep security top of mind. Since language service providers often deal with sensitive data, that means you need to choose an LSP that follows strict standards and procedures to keep that data safe.
At K International, we treat information security as a serious issue it is. Our clients trust us with their sensitive data. Here’s how we safeguard it:
Technology and Security at K International: ISO 27001 Certification
We are proud to hold full accreditation of information security management standard ISO/IEC 27001 from the British Standards Institute. “That sounds great,” you might be thinking, “but what does it mean to me?”
The answer, in 3 words: “peace of mind.” Since we’re ISO 27001-certified, you can have confidence that all of the procedures we use to protect your company data meet security standards set by the International Organisation for Standardization (ISO).
Before we could even apply for certification, we were required to complete the following steps:
- Systematically examine our operations to identify security risks, with an eye for threats, vulnerabilities and potential impacts.
- Create and put into practice a “coherent and comprehensive” set of information security protocols and procedures to mitigate these threats.
- Create and put into practice a management system that ensures these standards continue to provide suitable protection over time.
To become certified, we also had to pass an independent compliance audit from the British Standards Institute. Furthermore, to maintain our certification, we have to complete an audit from an external management consultant every month, and additional inspections from independent international quality management specialists twice a year.
Our ISO 27001 accreditation proves that we’re not just mouthing pretty words where security is concerned.
Cyber Essentials and Cyber Essentials Plus
We also hold Cyber Essentials and Cyber Essentials Plus certifications. These certifications verify that we have controls in place to guard our company and your sensitive data against cyber-attacks. This certification is a government-backed scheme and you can find more details about it on the National Cyber Security Centre website.
What does Certified cyber security mean?
- You can rest reassured that we have a verified system of best practices in place to secure our IT against cyber attacks.
- Our cyber security measures have been rigorously tested by cybersecurity experts (as part of the Cyber Security Plus certification process).
- We have a clear picture of our organisation’s cyber security level.
In order to get these certifications, we had to:
Complete a self-assessment against five basic security controls and get a qualified assessor to verify the information provided.
Get a qualified assessor to examine the same five controls, testing that they work through a technical audit.
Security Clearances
Information security is of paramount importance to both government and business clients. However, government clients often have special security requirements, and K International is pleased to be able to fulfil them.
Every single person on our staff is CTC (Counter Terrorist Checks)-cleared or better. We regularly handle sensitive documents, and we have a pool of pre-selected, specially cleared linguists available for government clients. If you need a specific security clearance for your project, ask us.
We also offer security-cleared transcription services with four levels of government security-cleared transcribers, ranging from CTC to Security Checks (SC) and even Developed Vetting (DV).
Non-disclosure agreements protect your information
I made sure Nala signed a Non Disclosure Agreement before she started work ????????❤ @K_International #kitten #transcription pic.twitter.com/7RjG2w7zcI
— Ruth Raven (@RuthieR) October 18, 2018
At K International, all of our contracted freelancers (and occasionally, their pets) sign non-disclosure agreements to keep your business information confidential, as it should be.
Secure Document Handling Procedures
Need to send a paper translation request? No problem. To safeguard paper documents that may contain sensitive information, we never use PO boxes. All materials are delivered directly to our headquarters. When we aren’t translating them, they are kept securely in one of our fireproof safes.
We’ve been in business for over 30 years, we’ve handled over one million documents for the UK government, and we’ve never lost a single document. Whether you work for the UK government or not, that demonstrates how seriously we take security.
Machine Translation Used Appropriately In a Secure Environment
This should go without saying, but at K International, we never use Google Translate or any other free online machine translation platform. That’s not just because the results are prone to errors- it’s also because online machine translation comes with extra security risks. For example, last year, Norwegian oil company Statoil suffered a major scandal when journalists found quite a bit of the company’s sensitive information available freely online.
What happened? This particular data breach wasn’t caused by hackers, rather by Statoil’s own employees. They had been using the free machine translation service Translate.com to translate internal documents. Translate.com, in turn, had been uploading the translated text into the cloud. And there it remained, publicly available. The data included everything from staff termination letters to employee performance reports!
At K International, we use machine translation only when it’s appropriate for the project, and only in our own secure environment. This approach ensures your company’s data stays where it belongs. (Bonus: it also ensures more accurate and effective translations!)
The bottom line is simple: Finding the right language services partner is crucial to protecting your organisation’s sensitive data. With decades of experience, a verified set of information security procedures, secure document handling and trustworthy, vetted staff, K International is uniquely positioned to be that partner. For more information on how we can help you talk to the world, take a moment to review the services we offer and contact us to discuss your next project.