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French to English translations [PRO] Law/Patents - Law (general)
French term or phrase:pays non-adéquat
Company legalese to do with GDPR compliance.
"Pays adéquat : Ensemble des pays tiers à l’UE qui présentent des garanties semblables au RGPD."
"Les transferts de données d’un pays présentant une législation relative à la protection des Données à Caractère Personnel adéquat vers un pays qui n’est pas établi dans un pays règlementé."
"Les transferts de données impliquant un pays qui n’est pas établi dans l’UE et un pays adéquat."
"Aucune donnée à Caractère Personnel ne doit être transférée vers un pays non-adéquat tant qu’il n’est pas établi que le destinataire des données est lié : ..."
I do wish laywers wouldn't improvise. It is the protection which is meant to be "adéquate", not the country.
Is it acceptable to use the phrase "inadequate country" in connection with the GDPR terminology, which is distinctly stilted in English? Googling the phrase does yield a few hits, and by this yardstick the USA, for example, is described thus.
If not, what? "Country without adequate protection"?
Explanation: Hello all I agree with Mpoma and his own suggestion to his question (country without adequate protection) but to stay with the negative in the French, (NON-adequate), I suggest the above. Straightforward English without using terms that are stilted in English and no suggestion that the country is "non-adequate" cos it is as Mpoma says the protection that is lacking. Regards
-------------------------------------------------- Note added at 12 hrs (2019-10-03 03:31:04 GMT) --------------------------------------------------
Asker: Please note the option suggested by Ph_B in his agree entry: "Country with inadequate DATA protection" which I did consider actually.
I go for this, or "country without adequate protection" (my own original suggestion, and perhaps slightly more objective-sounding) 3 KudoZ points were awarded for this answer
I took the liberty of changing it myself. But anyone searching on this term will be able to read this whole interesting discussion and come to their own conclusions, as per normal...
I won't deny that I was very happy to see my suggestion accepted in this case :)
It has been entered into the glossary by me as
country with inadequate (data) protection
in view of what others said so thanks and credit goes to them too :)
Once again, I would like to say that I think that the forum is for us to work together including on the question of legalese, but this should not be forced down our throats, used to systematically disagree with others, especially when the disagreer has their own suggestion up, nor be a reason for arrogant lecturing or personal comments
But I realise that the rules on Proz do not ban this behaviour and that I can only appeal for this, but not insist upon it.
@SafeTex ... you appear to have changed the glossary entry. I think "without adequate" is better for the reason given. Also the French does not say "pays inadéquat". In either language "inadequate" is a very strong and condemnatory word: the French is clearly trying to tone things down ever so slightly.
AllegroTrans said: "We are in the age of dumming down and it is due to English not being properly taught in schools. Rant finished." --- shouldn't that be "dumbing"?
Daryo: on the main issue: when an "adequacy decision" is taken the context presumably makes it clear that they are referring to the adequacy of the *protection*, not the adequacy of the *country*. Enough not to make it an open-and-shut case, I say. As SafeTex says, the legislation itself never uses "non-adequate country", so as a translator I feel free to correct the "mistake" of the elision of the drafter of my document. If that were to result in a preposterously unwieldy expression I'd think twice, but that isn't the case. Another thought: in my many years of Fr-Eng legal translation, I think I have detected in French legalese a tendency to be slightly happier with elision of various kinds than in English legalese. PS: I would indeed classify this as legalese, since it's obviously written by lawyers. It can be argued that their writing is slapdash: "vers un pays qui n’est pas établi dans un pays règlementé", clearly gobbledegook, etc.
if some countries are deemed "adequate" then it doesn't take a huge leap of faith / some bold foray in unexplored wild linguistic territories to call all other third countries "non-adequate" (or "inadequate").
I can't see much options to describe the opposite of "adequate" when you need it, whatever Google has to say about it.
I posted links to the official GDPR texts in English and French and made the same observation as you (adequacy decision, adequate protection) but noted too that "non-adequate country" or" pays non-adéquat" is NEVER used.
and first results show that non-EU countries become deemed to be an "acceptable recipient for the transfer of personal data of EU citizens" following a decision from the Commission of the EU called "adequacy decision", so adequate / non-adequate countries sounds right as an abbreviated form that is perfectly unambiguous in the given context.
as this is the terminology used in the GDPR regulations, it would seem to me blindingly obvious [or it's just me?] that the right / most relevant place to look for any terms would be original wording of the GDPR - publicly available on the Web, in all official languages of the EU, each official version having been thoroughly checked before publication? (not exactly comparable to individual submissions no one could be bothered to make presentable)
Also, this ST may well be "only" some internal instructions to employees, but it doesn't make it less "legalese" nor it would be in any way a pretext to start inventing your own rewording of a legislation - you don't explain to someone how to apply a law by inventing your own terms instead of those used in the relevant law.
I have worked with lawyers very knowledgeable in their field but totally out of their depth when attempting to write intelligible English. Just because a lawyer writes a lazy, shorthand version of a phrase does not make it a legal term. Believe me, I see drafts of consent court orders handed up to judges with spelling mistakes, unintelligble abbreviations and sloppy grammar written out by highly qualifed barristers and solicitors here in England. Nobody has the "time" to correct them! We are in the age of dumming down and it is due to English not being properly taught in schools. Rant finished.
This is a company policy providing guidance to employees on how to comply with General Data Protection Regulation 2016/679 (the GDPR) -- in other words, how to avoid breaking the law.
That being the case, I guarantee you that it was drafted by lawyers. After all, you don't just ask your secretary or your communications guy to write a policy when a mistake in the policy could cause the company to break the law(!). Lawyers write this type of document all day long (company policies on how to avoid breaking data law, employment discrimination law, wage & labor law, medical privacy law, etc.).
It's a legal document. It's in legalese. The terms used were chosen by lawyers for a reason, not made up on the fly.
There seems to be a fundamental disagreement about the way to approach this translation. To be honest, I would use the more natural English suggestion and highlight the term to the client. Give the client the direct translation on the side and let them do with it what they will. If these are guidelines for staff I would imagine the client's priority would be clarity.
There are specialist words and terms in legal language just as in any other discipline, but I definitely do not regard "pays non-adéquat" as Legalese and simply taking a lawyerly stance and suggesting that only lawyers would understand such a term is just not acceptable. I have spent 40 years working in law (and admin.) and was always taught that "Legalese" also has to be written comprehensibly. I have never heard of a "non-adequate country" - sounds like a failed county to my ears, the term is simply incomprehensible.
Thanks for the bonus term. Sounds like the origins of a certain strand of your profession which that covers, so working it into a conversation with a lawyer shouldn't be too hard. "You will win, but at the cost of a share of your field." Plus ça change.
So once again, I refute the legalese argument and that all lawyers are like Gods who we must "obey", especially in a case where the official text is legalese-free and then someone comes along and uses a stilted phrase to mean EXACTLY the same thing.
This is an great subject. Should we translate what's there? so that people can appreciate the true nature of the source text (and maybe have the ability to criticize it and react to it) or should we modify it to an extent where it suits our own need for clarity? To me, only the client can decide. I would translate what's there (excluding typos), and provide the client with a note for any "improved" changes of the source text we think is worth noting. So, I would tend to partially agree with Eliza.
Art. 45 GDPR Transfers on the basis of an adequacy
21:05 Oct 2, 2019
Hello all
If you read Art. 45 GDPR Transfers on the basis of an adequacy decision, the phrases "adequacy decision" or "adequate protection" is used but "non adequate" never occurs (nor does "inadequate").
But in view of the French which leans on "adequate decision", I think we have to accept one of the two suggestions up or a variation like "country with inadequate protection" (my preference)
We need to look inside the GDPR and texts around it.
That would be helpful, but not definitive. If the GDPR uses the term and there are standard EN and FR versions of the GDRP to refer to, then there's your answer--use the EN version of the term in the official EN translation of the GDRP.
But if it doesn't, then you're just dealing with legalese, and specifically a defined term in the contract (or corporate policy, same difference -- either way it was drafted by lawyers who used specific legal terms for certain reasons). The lawyers chose that term for a reason, so stick with it: Non-adequate country.
Mpoma describes it as "company legalese". Could s/he please tell us the exact nature of the document? To me, the source text looks like guidelines or a description of what staff must do/know in certain circumstances. If so, it is certainly binding in that staff do what they're recruited to do, but is that legalese as such? Also, the definition that Eliza refers to is oddly phrased (un pays = un ensemble de pays?) nor does it apply in any case to the term that is asked, which could therefore be translated otherwise. Legalese? Not sure. And I agree with AllegroTrans : EU texts are there to give us the terminology we need. Why not use it?
In this case we need to speak Eurobabble. Ordinary Legalese won't do. Transatlantic English won't do. We need to look inside the GDPR and texts around it.
It would be m'lady, Mpoma, but your post made me laugh :)
As a special gift to repay you for that moment of very welcome hilarity, let me share with you this legal term that does not exist outside of legalese. As a means of self-entertainment, you can challenge yourself to find ways to somehow insert it into normal conversation:
CHAMPERTY a proceeding by which a person not a party in a suit bargains to aid in or carry on its prosecution or defense in consideration of a share of the matter in suit. Adjective: champertous https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/champerty
This is legalese, so the question of whether the term is normally used in FR, or whether there are synonymous terms that are used in everyday EN and that would be less potentially offensive, is not pertinent. The word "legalese" exists precisely because legal documents use terms that aren't normally used, and in some cases don't even exist, outside the context of legal documents.
Legalese gets translated into legalese, just like medical and scientific terms get translated into medical and scientific terms -- NOT into everyday English (or whatever the target language is).
"Non-adéquat" isn't a word normally used in FR; "non-adequate" isn't a word normally used in EN. They're both legalese. They are utterly identical in meaning and tone. They are both one word long, so the translated term can be inserted into the contract provisions where the FR term is used without making the syntax unwieldy or the sentence too long. Perfect!
And on top of that, Mpoma has confirmed via google that these terms exist in English. Sounds like our job here is done.
Please post your suggestion as this is wording that I have often seen in English and I'm sure it's correct
Ph_B (X)
France
"country that
15:41 Oct 2, 2019
[does not ensure] an adequate level of data protection" ? See recital 107 here: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CEL... On the other hand, pays non-adéquat doesn't sound right in French either, so your choice appears to be "inadequate country" to reflect the French, but which you don't like, or an explanation in good English.
Apparently the phrase "adequate country" is used quite a bit in this area. The opposite appears to be "non-adequate" country (the UK may be one in just under 30 days).
I don't think this is it. A non-EU country doesn't have to *comply* with the GDPR in order to provide an *adequate* level of protection, it's just that this protection has to be satisfactory (adequate). That's what I mean about applying the specific term "adequate" to a country rather than to the protection afforded.
Automatic update in 00:
Answers
1 hr confidence: peer agreement (net): +2
Non-adequate country
Explanation: The term you're translating is a defined term in the legal contract. The lawyers will have chosen that exact term for specific reasons that we may not be aware of (there may be existing rules, judicial decisions, etc., that used the terms "pays adéquat/non-adéquat" in this sense, so the lawyers are making it absolutely clear that this contract refers to that body of law).
I don't know what the reason for their wording is, but I guarantee you, as a lawyer, that the lawyers did not "improvise."
Eliza Hall United States Local time: 22:03 Specializes in field Native speaker of: English PRO pts in category: 145
Notes to answerer
Asker: Haha. OK. Well someone did, if not these particular lawyers. But yes, this term "non-adequate" appears to be the adjective of choice. Personally I would call this a barbaric or awkward adjective: the opposite of adequate is inadequate. But whichever jurist it was who decided that you could/should use the term "adequate country" also inevitably realised the absurdity (not necessarily the inaccuracy) of the term "inadequate country" (e.g. when applied to the USA or, very shortly perhaps, the UK).
peer agreement (net): +2