Privacy Policy

Who we are

DHCTranslations provides certified translation services from New York. This policy explains what we collect when you use this website or place an order, why we hold it, how long we keep it, and what you can ask us to do with it. You can reach us about anything in this policy at [email protected].

What we collect

• What you type into our forms: your name and email address, and a postal address if a printed set is ordered.
• The documents you send: the files or photographs you upload or email for translation, which may contain personal information about you or about other people named in them.
• Order records: the quote, the language pair, the word count, the price, the dates and the status of the work.
• Payment details: handled by our payment provider. We see that a payment was made, the amount and a reference; we never see or store your card number.
• Technical information: the ordinary server records any website keeps, such as the page requested and the time it was requested.

Why we use it

• To do the work you asked for: prepare the quote, translate the documents, certify them, deliver them and answer your questions.
• To keep proper records: invoices, payment records and the audit trail behind a certificate, because a receiving body may ask about a translation months later.
• To meet the law: tax and accounting records, and disclosure to a court, regulator or authority where we are legally required to disclose.
• To tell you about our services, only if you have asked us to. You can stop that at any time, and it never affects work already under way.

Who we share it with

We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share it for advertising.

• The translator and reviewer working on your order, who see the documents because the work cannot be done otherwise.
• Our payment provider, which takes the card payment and keeps its own record of it.
• Our email and hosting providers, which carry the correspondence and store the files.
• A court, regulator or authority, where the law requires it or where we are defending a legal claim.

How long we keep it

Source documents and completed translations are held for a maximum of 90 days, unless you ask us to delete them sooner. If you want your files removed as soon as the work is complete, tell us when you order or email us afterwards and we will delete them without waiting for the 90 days to expire.

Quotation and inquiry correspondence is kept while the inquiry is active and for a reasonable period afterwards so we can answer follow-up questions. Invoices and payment records are kept for six years, because tax and accounting rules require it.

Order tracking records, meaning the reference number, the email address used to look an order up, the dates and a short generic description such as "Translation of 1 document", are held for 90 days after completion. The tracker never shows your name, your documents or their contents.

Your rights

If you live in a state with a privacy law, you may have the right to:

• know whether we hold personal information about you, and get a copy of it;
• ask us to correct information that is wrong or incomplete;
• ask us to delete information we hold about you, subject to records we must keep by law;
• ask us to stop using your information for marketing;
• use an authorized agent to make a request for you, where your state allows it;
• not be treated differently for exercising any of these rights.

We do not sell personal information and we do not share it for cross-context behavioral advertising, so there is nothing to opt out of on that point. We do not use or disclose sensitive personal information for any purpose beyond providing the service.

To make a request, email [email protected] from the address you used to order, or tell us the order reference. We reply within 45 days, and we will tell you if we need more time and why. We may ask a question or two to confirm the request is yours; we will not ask for more than that. These rights concern your personal information. They do not replace or alter our Terms of Use, including the refund and cancellation terms that apply once a translator has been assigned to your order.

If you are in California

The California Consumer Privacy Act, as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act, gives California residents the rights listed above, and adds the right to limit the use of sensitive personal information. We do not collect sensitive personal information for any purpose other than translating the document you send, so there is no separate limit request to make.

We have not sold or shared personal information in the preceding twelve months. The categories we collect are identifiers (name, email, postal address), the contents of the documents you send, commercial information (what you ordered and paid) and internet activity records. We collect them for the purposes above and keep them for the periods stated.

Places outside the United States

Translation work is sometimes done by a translator or reviewer working outside the United States, and our email and hosting providers may store data on servers abroad. Where that happens the same rules in this policy apply to the work, and everyone handling a document is bound by confidentiality.

Cookies and card payments

This website uses a small number of cookies. We do not use advertising, profiling or analytics cookies.

Payment cookies. When you pay by card, payment is handled by our payment provider through the WP Simple Pay plugin, which processes cards through Stripe. When the payment form loads, Stripe sets cookies such as __stripe_mid and __stripe_sid to detect and prevent fraud and to keep the payment secure. __stripe_mid can last up to one year and __stripe_sid is a short session cookie. If you are taken to a Stripe-hosted page to complete payment, Stripe may set cookies on its own domains, as described in Stripe's cookie policy.

You can block or delete cookies in your browser settings. Blocking the Stripe cookies may stop the payment form from working. Because these cookies are needed to provide the service you have asked for, we do not use a cookie consent banner. If we add analytics or advertising cookies in future, we will ask for your consent first and update this policy.

Children

This site and our services are for adults arranging translations. We do not knowingly collect information from a child, though a document you send may of course contain a child's details, which we use only to translate it.

Changes to this policy

If we change how we handle personal information we will update this page and move the date at the top. If the change is significant we will say so on the site, and where the law requires it we will ask for your consent.

Contact

Questions about this policy, or a request under it, go to [email protected]. If you do not want to be contacted about our services again, write to the same address and we will stop; you may receive one or two messages while the change is processed. If you are unhappy with our answer you may complain to the attorney general or privacy regulator in your state.