Some Issues With Technology And Confidentiality
I went to listen to a conference on open formats today. It was delivered at my local university (see announcement here). This was not for work, I was just listening and taking notes for my own benefit. There wasn’t much that I didn’t know already, but simply listening to experts in your own language, and not having to translate at the same time is a useful reinforcement. It’s also how I see lifelong education. It works well for me. I don’t attend translation conferences anymore, but I follow a number of subjects closely. For translators in general, and conference interpreters more specifically, it is definitely a must.
photo credit: PauLoX.net
Back to the conference. I came away with a pretty grim outlook for consumers in general, and a few reinforcements.
Buy today (at a high price!) the latest proprietary technology and expect to see it superseded fairly soon, and buy a new one. We know it, yet advertising is there to make us forget about it somehow, and buy again. Or, thinking of my own equipment, I bought a new computer last year, and I know that I’ll have to change it again next year.
For professionals, there is the added problem of the continued use and storage of data. Backups are indispensable. If only for tax purposes, I print out every bill or purchase order that comes via e-mail or downloaded from a website. Like those telephone bills that my operator insists that I download from their servers, as part of being kind, oh so kind, to the environment. I can’t tell for sure. Anyway I can’t afford to have my computer die on me and lose those bills. And how encouraging is it to hear that paper is probably still the most reliable backup medium for extreme security in some cases?
Worse still, I heard that the use of Skype is formally banned from French universities and research laboratories, for security reasons. Whether universities are right or wrong in implementing this policy is not for me to decide. But this fact immediately brought to mind some research I did about who was providing translation services over Skype. When some organizations are pointing accusing fingers at freelance or contract translators for being a confidentiality hazard (vs. translation agencies in some cases, or vs. employee interpreters in other, how can these translators afford to offer that kind of service with any degree of peace of mind?
Skype is very useful and I use it all the time. But I wouldn’t dream of using it to provide any kind of paid service. There is too much at stake in our relationship with our clients. This much got reinforced today.
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