AI can help you prepare and follow along. It can also send a client's private conversation to a server you've never audited. What to check before it touches a real assignment.
Confidentiality is the one duty every interpreter code agrees on. Medical, legal, immigration, and business assignments all depend on the people in the room trusting that what's said stays there. AI tools complicate that, because many of them work by sending your audio or text to someone else's servers. Using a tool doesn't change your duty; it changes where you have to look to keep it. This guide gives you the questions to ask, the situations that need extra care, and a checklist you can run in two minutes before a job.
Professional codes of ethics for interpreters, including those from major associations and certification bodies, consistently treat confidentiality as a core obligation. Interpreters don't disclose information learned during an assignment, and they protect it from being exposed through carelessness as well as intent.
That second part is where AI tools come in. If a recording, transcript, or document leaves your control because a tool uploaded it, retained it, or trained on it, that can be a breach even if you meant no harm. Your agency contract, the client's rules, and local law may also impose their own requirements on top of the code.
Does it stay on your device, or is it processed on a vendor's servers? Which countries? Is any of it passed to subprocessors? Vague answers are an answer.
Recordings, transcripts, and logs can all persist. Look for a plain statement of what is kept and when it is deleted, not just "we take privacy seriously".
Consumer chatbot settings differ by product and plan, and they change. Check the current terms. If content can be used for training, don't put confidential material in.
Ask whether staff can read sessions, for support or quality review, and under what controls.
Encryption doesn't solve everything, but its absence settles the question.
The tool can be technically safe and still be prohibited on a given job. Many courts, clinics, and corporate clients have explicit rules on recording, transcription, and AI. When in doubt, ask first.
Even when a tool is safe, transparency protects you. A short sentence in your confirmation, such as "I use a private live-captioning tool as a reference during remote sessions; nothing is recorded or stored", lets the client object before the job, not during it. If the client says no, the answer is no.
Be honest about what the tool does and doesn't do. A captioning reference that shows you the words is different in kind from a tool that records and summarizes the conversation. Name the difference when you describe it.
| General chatbot | Meeting notetaker bot | Unicaption | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Joins the call | No | Yes, as a participant | No, runs on your own device |
| Typical data kept | Depends on product and plan; check current terms | Often recordings and transcripts | Nothing: audio never stored, transcripts deleted at session end |
| Used to train models | Varies by product and settings | Varies | Never |
| Best use | Public-information prep | Internal meetings you own | Live reference during assignments |
Unicaption is a real-time captioning and translation copilot built for interpreters, which is why its privacy design starts from what you'd want to be able to tell a client.
That's the extent of the privacy claim, and it's the one to cite. Unicaption doesn't hold any compliance certification, so for regulated settings, follow your client's own rules about which tools are permitted. For related reading, see HIPAA-compliant live captioning and live captioning and GDPR in the EU.
Yes, if they check how the tool handles data and the client and agency permit it. Confirm where audio and text go, whether anything is stored or used for training, and who can access it. Unicaption is end-to-end encrypted, never stores audio, deletes transcripts when the session ends, and never uses content to train models.
Only when your contract, the client, and the tool's current data terms all allow it. Confidential contracts, case files, and patient information generally shouldn't go into a general-purpose chatbot. Build glossaries from public information or your own notes when you can't confirm the terms.
Your agency contract and the client's rules decide, but disclosing a tool before the job is good practice and avoids disputes. Describe it accurately: a live reference that shows text on your screen is different from a tool that records or summarizes the conversation. If the client declines, work without it.
No. Unicaption never stores audio, deletes transcripts when the session ends, encrypts sessions end to end, and never uses session content to train models. It runs on your own device through the microphone or system audio, so nothing joins the call.
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