Privacy Policy

1. Our commitment to your privacy

• Sylaba Pty Ltd ACN 624 616 084, ABN 44 624 616 084, trading as Sylaba Translations (we, us, our) is committed to protecting your privacy and to handling your personal information carefully and in accordance with the privacy laws that apply to us. This Privacy Policy describes how we do that.
• This Privacy Policy explains what personal information we collect, how we collect and hold it, why we collect it, who we share it with, and how you can access, correct or complain about our handling of it.
• In this Privacy Policy, you means any individual whose personal information we collect or hold.

2. About us

• Sylaba Translations is an Australian owned and operated language services provider, based in Melbourne and working in more than 150 languages. Our translations are produced by NAATI-certified translators, and we are certified to ISO 17100 and ISO 18587.
• We provide NAATI-certified translation of personal and official documents for visa, immigration, citizenship, licensing and academic purposes; translation, editing, cultural adaptation and community checking for government, health and community organisations; corporate, legal, technical and marketing translation; website and software localisation; interpreting; transcription, subtitling, voiceover and typesetting; and plain English editing and training.

3. What we mean by “personal information”

• Personal information is information or an opinion about an identified individual, or an individual who is reasonably identifiable, whether the information is true or not and whether it is recorded in a material form or not. It includes information that does not name you but from which you could reasonably be identified when combined with other information.
• Sensitive information is a subset of personal information. It includes information about your health, racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, membership of a professional or trade association or trade union, sexual orientation or practices, criminal record, and biometric and genetic information. We generally only collect sensitive information with your consent, or where we are otherwise permitted to do so by law.

4. What personal information we collect

The personal information we collect depends on how you interact with us.

4.1 Information you give us when you enquire or place an order

Your name; contact details, including email address, postal address and telephone number; the organisation you represent and your role; details of the services you have enquired about or purchased; payment and billing information; and records of our communications with you.

4.2 Information contained in the documents we translate

• To translate and certify a document we necessarily collect the information that document contains. This often includes sensitive information of the kinds described in clause 3, for example health information, information about your racial or ethnic origin or your religious beliefs, and biometric information such as a photograph.
• Where you engage us for interpreting, transcription, subtitling or voiceover services, we may also collect audio and audio-visual recordings, which may identify you or other people by voice or image.
• The documents you give us may also contain the personal information of other people, including children, where those documents are birth certificates, school and academic records, or documents forming part of a family visa or citizenship application. Where a child does not have the capacity to make their own decisions about their personal information, we will seek the consent of a parent or guardian.

4.3 Information about the people we work with

• For our translators, interpreters, suppliers and contractors: name, role, business contact details, ABN, bank account details for payment, insurance details, NAATI certification and other licensing details, and records of our dealings with you.
• For job applicants: name and contact details, resume, qualifications, work history, right to work status, referee comments, and the outcome of any pre-employment checks we conduct with your consent. Before offering you a position, we may also collect your tax file number, superannuation details, and any further information needed to confirm your suitability for the role.

4.4 Website visitors

See clause 11.

4.5 Unsolicited information

If we receive personal information about you that we did not ask for, and we could not lawfully have collected it ourselves, we will destroy or de-identify that information as soon as practicable, provided it is lawful and reasonable to do so.

4.6 Visitors to our premises

If you visit our offices, we may collect your name, the organisation you represent, your contact details, and the date and time of your visit.

5. How we collect personal information

• We usually collect personal information directly from you, for example, when you complete a form, contact us by telephone or email, use our website, enter into a contract with us, or deal with us in person.
• Sometimes we collect personal information about you from a third party or from a publicly available source, including:
  • our related entities;
  • our clients, where they provide us with information to enable us to deliver our services;
  • recruitment agencies, referees and background check providers;
  • our service providers and business partners;
  • publicly available sources such as the ASIC registers, land titles registers and professional directories; and
  • the individual who asked us to translate a document, where that document names you.
• Where we collect your personal information from someone other than you, we will take reasonable steps to make you aware that we have done so, unless an exception applies under the privacy laws that apply to us.

6. Why we collect, hold, use and disclose personal information

• We collect, hold, use and disclose personal information for the following purposes:
  • to provide the goods and services you have requested;
  • to communicate with you, including responding to your enquiries, requests and complaints;
  • to administer our relationship with you, including billing, payment, credit management and debt recovery;
  • to manage our business operations, including record keeping, quality assurance, staff training, planning, reporting and internal analysis;
  • to manage risk, including insurance, and to obtain legal and other professional advice;
  • to establish, exercise or defend legal claims;
  • to recruit and assess personnel; and
  • to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations, including responding to subpoenas, notices to produce, court orders and requests from regulators and law enforcement agencies.
• We will also use and disclose your personal information for any other purpose we tell you about at the time we collect it, for any purpose you consent to, and for any other purpose permitted or required by law.

7. If you do not provide your personal information

You do not have to give us your personal information. However, if you do not, we may not be able to provide you with the goods or services you have requested or respond to your enquiry since we cannot certify a translation without the source document containing your personal information.

8. Dealing with us anonymously or using a pseudonym

Where it is lawful and practicable, you may deal with us anonymously or under a pseudonym, for example, when making a general enquiry. In most cases it will not be practicable for us to deal with you anonymously on an ongoing basis, because we need to be able to identify you to provide our services since a certified translation reproduces the names and details on your source document.

9. How we hold your personal information

We hold personal information in electronic form on our systems and on systems operated by our service providers, and, at times, in paper records. Where we convert paper records to electronic form, we securely destroy the original unless you ask us to return it.

10. How we protect your personal information

• We take reasonable steps to protect your personal information from misuse, interference and loss, and from unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. These steps include:
  • access controls, so that personal information is only available to those who need it to perform their role;
  • multi-factor authentication and password policies;
  • encryption of personal information in transit and at rest;
  • network security measures including firewalls, endpoint protection and monitoring;
  • regular patching, backups and testing of our systems;
  • physical security at our premises, including locks, alarms and visitor management;
  • staff training on privacy and information security, and confidentiality obligations in employment contracts;
  • due diligence on, and contractual protections with, our service providers;
  • documented policies and procedures, including a data breach response plan, which we review regularly;
  • confidentiality obligations in written agreements with our staff, translators, interpreters and other contractors, and the professional obligations that bind NAATI-certified practitioners; and
  • the documented processes required by our ISO 17100 and ISO 18587 certification.
• No method of transmitting or storing information is completely secure. While we take the steps described above, we cannot guarantee the security of your personal information.
• Email is not a secure method of transmission. If you send documents to us by email, please be aware of this. Contact us if you would prefer to provide your documents by another means.

11. Our website, cookies and analytics

• You can visit our website at https://sylaba.com.au without telling us who you are. However, our website uses cookies and similar technologies that collect information such as your device and browser type, operating system, IP address, the pages you view, the links you click, and the date and time of your visit.
• Some of this information may be personal information, either on its own or when combined with other information we hold.
• We use this information to operate and secure our website, understand how it is used, improve it, and deliver and measure advertising.
• We use the following third-party services on our website: Google Analytics; Google reCAPTCHA on our web forms; advertising, remarketing and audience measurement tools operated by Google and by social media platforms; social media and messaging tools including Facebook, LinkedIn, X and WhatsApp; and the platforms that host our client portal and our online training courses. These providers may collect information about your use of our website and of other websites, and handle that information in accordance with their own privacy policies.
• You can manage cookies through your browser settings. If you disable cookies, some parts of our website may not work properly.
• Our website may contain links to third-party websites. We are not responsible for the content or the privacy practices of those websites.

12. Government related identifiers

We will not adopt a government related identifier (such as a tax file number, Medicare number or driver licence number) as our own identifier for you, and we will only use or disclose such an identifier where we are permitted to do so by law.

13. Direct marketing

• We may use and disclose your personal information to tell you about our goods, services, promotions and events that we think may interest you. We may contact you by email, SMS, telephone, post and through targeted advertising on social media platforms.
• You can opt out of receiving marketing communications from us at any time by using the unsubscribe link in any marketing email or by contacting our Privacy Officer using the details in clause 20. We will action your request as soon as practicable, and we will not charge you for doing so.
• If you opt out, we may still contact you about our ongoing relationship with you, including about the goods and services you have purchased.
• We will not use or disclose your sensitive information for direct marketing without your consent.
• You may also ask us to tell you the source of the personal information we used to market to you, and we will do so unless it is impracticable or unreasonable.

14. Automated decision-making

• We do not use computer programs to make, or to substantially assist in making, decisions about you that could reasonably be expected to significantly affect your rights or interests. Our quotes and our translations are reviewed by a person before they are issued.
• We use third-party artificial intelligence tools to assist us with terminology and quality checking. Where we do, we only input personal information where the provider is contractually prohibited from using it to train its models.

15. Who we disclose your personal information to

• We may disclose your personal information to:
  • our employees, contractors and related entities, on a need-to-know basis;
  • service providers who help us run our business, including providers of information technology, cloud hosting and data storage, software, payment processing, customer relationship management, marketing, mail and printing, archiving and secure destruction, debt recovery, and professional advice;
  • our clients, where you are a customer or a participant in a matter or event we are delivering for them;
  • our insurers, brokers, lawyers, accountants and other professional advisers;
  • prospective purchasers of, or investors in, our business, and their advisers, where you would reasonably expect this and subject to confidentiality obligations;
  • courts, tribunals, regulators and law enforcement agencies, where required or authorised by law; and
  • any other person with your consent, or as otherwise permitted by law.
• We do not sell your personal information.

16. Overseas disclosure

• We may disclose your personal information to, and permit access to it from, recipients located outside Australia. These recipients include our service providers and the translators, interpreters, reviewers and other linguists working on your project. The countries in which these recipients are most commonly located are Spain, United Kingdom, the Philippines, Italy and China. Because the languages required for your project determine who works on it, recipients for your project may be located in other countries. We will tell you the countries concerned on request.
• Before disclosing your personal information overseas, we take reasonable steps to ensure that the overseas recipient protects your personal information to a standard consistent with Australian privacy law, unless an exception applies or you have consented to the disclosure. Our written agreements with our overseas service providers and linguists require them to keep your personal information confidential, to use it only for the purposes of your project, and to destroy or return it when it is no longer required.

17. How long we keep your personal information

• We keep your personal information only for as long as we need it for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy, or for as long as we are required to keep it by law. In general, we apply the following retention periods:
  • Translations: the translations we produce and their accompanying certification are retained for 12 months after delivery, or for seven years if you ask us to retain them so that we can re-supply them to you;
  • Order and financial records: order, invoicing, payment and other financial records are retained for seven years, as required under the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) and taxation laws; and
  • Personnel and supplier records: records about our employees, job applicants, translators, interpreters, suppliers and contractors are retained for seven years after our relationship with you ends.
  • When we no longer need your personal information, and we are not required by law or by a court or tribunal order to retain it, we take reasonable steps to securely destroy it.

18. Accessing and correcting your personal information

• You can ask us for access to the personal information we hold about you at any time. Please contact our Privacy Officer using the details in clause 20.
• We will respond to your request within 30 days. We do not charge you for making a request, but we may charge a reasonable fee for the time and expense of giving you access. We will tell you the amount of the fee before we incur it.
• If you think the personal information we hold about you is inaccurate, out of date, incomplete, irrelevant or misleading, you can ask us to correct it and we will take reasonable steps to do so. Please also let us know if your details change.
• We may refuse a request for access or correction where we are permitted to do so by law. If we do, we will tell you in writing why, and how you can complain about our decision. If we refuse to correct information, you may ask us to attach to it a statement noting the correction you sought, and we will do so.

19. Complaints

• If you have a concern or a complaint about how we have handled your personal information, please contact our Privacy Officer using the details in clause 20. It assists us if you tell us in writing what happened and what outcome you are seeking.
• Our Privacy Officer will first consider whether there are simple or immediate steps that can resolve your complaint. Where that is possible, we will generally respond within one week.
• If your complaint requires more detailed consideration or investigation, we will acknowledge it within one week and aim to complete our investigation and respond within 30 days. We may ask you for further information, and we may need to review relevant documents and speak with the people involved.
• If the matter is complex, or our investigation will take longer than 30 days, we will tell you and keep you informed of our progress.
• If you are not satisfied with our response, you may be able to have your complaint considered by an external body, and we will tell you what options are available to you when we respond.

20. How to contact us

• Privacy Officer, Sylaba Pty Ltd t/a Sylaba Translations
• Email: info@sylaba.com.au
• Telephone: +61 3 9001 3210

21. Changes to this Privacy Policy

• We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. The current version is always available at sylaba.com.au/privacy-policy. Where the changes are significant, we will notify you by email if you have an account with and by posting a notice on our website.
• This Privacy Policy is a statement of our current practices. It does not form part of any contract between you and us.