Professional secrecy

[reminder]

Professional secrecy must also be kept by translators and interpreters, pursuant to the Professional Secrecy Act.

"A person shall also be deemed to have become the depositary of a secret by reason of his calling, profession or office when he obtains such secret by reason of being an employee, or employer, a partner or assistant, of a person who falls within the scope of article 257 of the Criminal Code or by reason of having acted as interpreter or translator in the communication of such secret." [Part II, 4 (1); Professional Secrecy Act]

What's your opinion about this?

[Hebe]

Hi reminder,

Hi remainder !! The way I se it , this kind of confidentiality obligation has a limitation, in cases where the authorities specifically request the translator or interpreter to reveal the information. Most confidentiality Laws include this exception .
Kind regards

[Veronica]

I didn't know translators were included in that law, I thought only priests and lawers were.
I don't know....I wouldn't like to hear some awful secret that would make the person a criminal and have to keep it...

[lauracipolla]

Let me tell you my experience... Some years ago I happened to act for some time as an interpreter for an American Manager in a company here in Argentina owned partly by a local company and partly by an American one. The President of the company (Argentinian), ignoring that translators do have a code of ethics, reminded me once, before a meeting, I that I should not reveal the contents of the meetings I participated in... (in fact he made me leave, depriving my employer of my vital services, but he had to apologize later, and accept me in the next meetings, after the above "reminder"... Aghhhhh!) Well, financial issues, management policies, and many other "important" issues were discussed and decisions were made -all in Spanish- that I had to interpret for the American Manager, and of course, though the subjects discussed seemed awfully boring and uninteresting to me, they were utterly important for the company to keep among the "hot shots"... ;-)

[sabrina]

I believe the Professional Secrecy Act mainly applies to sworn translators, though other translators (literary, technical, scientific, subtitlers) apply this rule founded more on conscience and ethics than a specific rule. But considering that nowadays there are so many amateurs in the field, I suspect this only applies to professionals.