Translation of Highly Confidential Financial Reports – A Case Study
In the fast-paced world of finance, the confidentiality of financial reports is paramount, especially when dealing with publicly traded companies. The need to keep information under wraps until the official announcement date presents unique challenges in translating such sensitive documents. This case study outlines how Consenso Global navigated these challenges to deliver a highly confidential annual financial report translation for a client in compliance with its ISO 27001 certification.
The Challenge
Our client, a company listed on the DAX stock market, required translating their annual financial report containing highly confidential information. This data was strictly classified until the official announcement date, after which it would become publicly available.
The Solution
After discussing several potential approaches, the client agreed to the following translation workflow designed to ensure maximum confidentiality and accuracy:
- Secure Data Transmission
The financial data was sent encrypted using the client’s secure FTP platform. Access to this data was limited to a single experienced and entrusted Consenso Global employee (Entrusted Linguist). The password for the encrypted data was communicated via SMS to the Entrusted Linguist.
- Defusing the Information
The objective here was to prepare the text to pass it to translators, proofreaders, and the Quality Assurance team without revealing the content.
– Step A: All numbers were removed from the tables.
– Step B: Numbers in the text were replaced with placeholders (e.g., “500K” became “001K”).
– Step C: The text was altered to allow multiple interpretations. For instance, “In 2023, we registered a strong growth across all our businesses” became “In 2023, we registered a small/regular/strong growth across all our businesses.”
– Step D: These changes ensured the original message was obscured.
- Translation
The modified text was then handed over to the translation team. The translation was performed following our ISO 17100 certification, involving separate linguists for translation and proofreading.
- Reconstruction
Post-translation, numbers and text were restored to their original state by the entrusted linguist, removing any alterations made to disguise the information. An additional quality assurance step was implemented by the same linguist to ensure accuracy.
- Delivery
The finalized data was sent back to the client encrypted using their FTP portal.
Conclusion
This project highlights Consenso Global’s commitment to handling sensitive information with the utmost care and precision in accordance with its ISO 27001 certification. By innovatively adapting our translation workflow, we ensured the confidentiality and integrity of the client’s financial report.
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