Machine translation (MT) is a critical tool for any organization looking to break language barriers. 

Thanks to recent advancements in machine learning technology, MT has become an increasingly common aspect of the translation workflow. With the power to process a vast array of content across multiple languages, MT provides a powerful solution to communication challenges. However, the prominence of this technological innovation also introduces unique security imperatives that require careful consideration.

MT tools process a wide spectrum of content across multiple languages — including potentially sensitive texts. Whether you’re using MT to translate subtitles for a show that hasn’t come out yet or to translate top-secret financial documents, the last thing you want to worry about is a data breach that could jeopardize the security of your work. As a result, ensuring the security and protection of this data is of great importance for any organization that uses MT in its workflow.

With the vast amount of content that MT systems have to process, any risk of data leakage or breach is serious and significant to organizations. This risk is compounded by the advanced software resources and intricate computing architectures that power MT, which may attract the attention of cybercriminals. And the consequences of a breach in security can extend far beyond financial loss, potentially resulting in regulatory penalties, erosion of trust from your clientele, and enduring damage to business performance.

While MT’s capabilities clearly make it a useful tool, it’s also clear that a standard, off-the-shelf public cloud MT system can fall short in meeting the security requirements of your business. In this era of heightened cybersecurity concerns, a holistic and tailored security approach is imperative. What organizations need is an MT solution that seamlessly integrates security into its design, ensuring that data protection isn’t an afterthought but a fundamental principle.

In the coming weeks, we’ll delve deeper into the intricacies of securing machine translation in the enterprise context. From data protection and secure architecture design to role-based access control and secure communication protocols, we’ll uncover the key components that safeguard sensitive information in MT while enabling efficient translation capabilities.

Read more on the topic of machine translation and cybersecurity in the September issue of MultiLingual magazine.