Helo Blod Privacy Notice

We last updated this notice on 23 February 2021.


Please take a moment to familiarize yourself with our privacy practices and note why we collect and process the data collected.

1. Purpose for processing

  1. Helo Blod has two main aims:
    Providing brief English/Welsh translations and text checking services to businesses, charities and individuals.
  2. Providing signposting/information on issues relating to the Welsh language to facilitate the use of Welsh.

 

2. What data are we collecting?

The Welsh Government will be the Data Controller for any personal data collected. We require your personal data, including contact details, to create an account on our IT system. This information and account enables us to communicate with you and to provide the most appropriate support for your enquiry.

The processing of personal data is necessary for the purposes outlined above, which are carried out according to our official authority to promote and facilitate the use of the Welsh Language - as set out in the Welsh Government’s Welsh Language Strategy, Cymraeg 2050.

Translation requests

Documents submitted for our translation service are recorded on your account, which is held on our IT system. These documents are sent outside the Welsh Government (without making any amendments) to our external translation contractor via Memsource. Memsource is a translation management system that assists our qualified translators. The text/sentence/words within the documents are stored by Memsource at data centres in Germany and Ireland. Once the translation is done, it’s returned to our IT system.

Text checking requests

Documents submitted for our text checking service are recorded on your account, which is held on our IT system. These documents will be accessed by our external translation contractors who have restricted access to our IT system. The translators will have full access to the document submitted for checking. However, they won’t have any access to the personal data stored on your account on our IT system.

 

We won’t be able to provide any service to organisations whose activities could reasonably be considered to bring the Welsh Government into disrepute.

Please ensure that you don’t include any information such as Commercially Sensitive information, personal or special category personal data as the documents won’t be amended before sending to our external translators. A full list of our T&Cs is available on the Helo Blod website, if you have any questions, please contact Helo Blod on 03000 25 88 88. Rydym yn croesawu galwadau’n Gymraeg / We welcome calls in Welsh.

 

3. Who’ll have access to your data?

  • Your personal data that has been entered on your account is only accessible by Welsh Government teams.
  • The collected information will be accessible by Welsh Government support service teams and its system technical administrators who support the IT system. System technical administrators won’t use your details in any way.
  • Any data, text, sentence, words contained within the translation and text checking requests you submit will be stored on Memsource (the translation management system) and accessible to our external translation contractors.

 

4. How long will your translation be kept by Welsh Government?

We use translation technology to assist our qualified, human translation contractors. The content of your translation may be held on Memsource (or any translation memories that our translators elect to use in the future), Google Translate, Microsoft Translator and TermCymru indefinitely (*see references in table at the end of this document). This will improve future translations, contribute to increasing the amount of Welsh available in the linguistic landscape, thus working towards achieving the aims of the Welsh Government’s Welsh Language Strategy, Cymraeg 2050.

 

5. How long are your details kept?

Your account details will be held securely on our systems for 3 years from the last use of the account. The information we collect is required to measure the success of the service, for reporting purposes and as part of our ongoing training and quality reviews.
Calls to our telephone number 03000 25 88 88 may be recorded for training and monitoring purposes; recordings will be retained for 999 days. Rydym yn croesawu galwadau’n Gymraeg / We welcome calls in Welsh.

 

6. Your rights

Under the data protection legislation, you have the right:

  • to access the personal data the Welsh Government holds on you;
  • require us to rectify inaccuracies in that data;
  • to (in certain circumstances) object to or restrict processing;
  • for (in certain circumstances) your data to be ‘erased’;
  • to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) who is our independent regulator for data protection.

 

The contact details for the Information Commissioner’s Office are:

Customer Contact
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

Telephone: 01625 545 745 or 0303 123 1113
Website: www.ico.org.uk

For help with any of the above rights then please contact us on 03000 25 88 88 or use our Contact Us form. Rydym yn croesawu galwadau’n Gymraeg / We welcome calls in Welsh.

 

7. The Freedom of Information Act and your Information

The Freedom of Information Act 2000 and the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 allow the public to ask to see information held by public bodies, including the Welsh Government. The information you provide us may be the subject of a freedom of information request by another member of the public. We would consult with you to seek your views before responding to such a request.

 

8. Changes to this policy

The Welsh Government may make changes to this privacy policy at any time. Changes will be posted here and are effective immediately. When changes occur to this policy we will contact you on the email address we have recorded in your account to enable you to review the new version.

 

For further information on your information rights

Postal address:
Data Protection Officer
Welsh Government
Cathays Park
CARDIFF
CF10 3NQ

Email address: DataProtectionOfficer@gov.wales  

 

*

System

Description

Memsource

A cloud-based translation management system which includes translation memory, terminology management, quality assurance and integrated machine translation.

Google Translate

A machine translation service developed by Google.

Microsoft Translate

A machine translation service provided by Microsoft.

TermCymru

An online database of terms developed by Welsh Government translators in their everyday work which is available online for public use.