Language Translation Tools: Google Translate, DeepL

She is right about one specific part of it, and it is the part most services do without thinking.

DeepL's own terms say you may not use the free service for content containing confidential or personal data of any kind. That is not a general warning, it is their rule. DeepL also states that it reserves the right to process content uploaded to the free service, and its translations, for a limited period in order to train and improve its neural networks. On the paid tier the position is different: submitted text is stored only as long as needed to return the translation and is then deleted, and is not used for improvement.

So pasting a mentee's letter, her email, or a case note into the free box is the problem, whatever your view of machine translation. That is her personal data leaving your control, and often special category data as well when the letter is about health or an asylum claim.

For everyday non-personal use it is a good tool and worth keeping. Coverage has widened too, so the old rule of thumb that DeepL is higher quality but covers far fewer languages no longer holds; check the current list rather than an article from a few years ago.

The letters are exactly what I use it for, because there is no interpreter available at short notice. If I stop, what am I supposed to do instead?

The honest answer is that this is a resource problem and it should be named as one rather than quietly solved with a tool that your service is not allowed to use that way.

Practical steps in the meantime. Find out whether your organisation has, or can buy, a paid tier where texts are not retained, because that removes the retention half of the objection and costs less than most people assume. Type the gist in your own words rather than pasting the document, leaving out her name, her case number and her address. Use machine translation to work out what a letter is about, then get the parts that carry a decision or a deadline confirmed by a person.

And keep the line firm where it matters. Anything with a legal or medical consequence needs a professional interpreter or translator, not an app. Getting the sense of a letter roughly right is useful. Getting a deadline or a condition of residence slightly wrong is not a small mistake. Do not use a family member for that either, however convenient it is.

On interpreters over video, since that is what usually replaces the app. It works, and it needs a little arranging: brief the interpreter before the mentee joins, agree that they interpret rather than summarise, and let the mentee know she can ask for something to be repeated.

Two things to watch. Interpreting takes roughly twice the time, so plan a shorter agenda rather than rushing. And the interpreting community can be small, so ask the mentee whether she is comfortable with an interpreter from her own community before booking one, because she may not raise it herself.