Deposition Interpreters for International Video Depositions

Legal Translation Services for Data Privacy Lawsuits

International deposition interpreting services play an important role in class action lawsuits over technical giants’ use of the customers’ private data. Such litigation often generates a need for court-certified deposition interpreters for remote depositions involving witnesses who provide deposition testimony from overseas. The name of today’s case is Chasom Brown, et al., v. Google LLC, from the United States District Court, N.D. California, Oakland Division. This action stems from a data privacy breach claim. This is a class action brought by Google subscribers who claimed that Google had tracked their Internet usage, despite them browsing in “private mode.” Plaintiffs further claimed that Google represented to them, the users, that they have control over of the information they want to share with Google. Since they were browsing the internet in private browsing mode, they did not give consent to Google to collect information pertaining to their Internet usage. Therefore, the plaintiffs further alleged that Google, without their consent, unlawfully collected their private internet usage information. Google, in defense, contended, in part, that Plaintiffs had consented to Google receiving their data.

Translating Letter of Request to Conduct Remote Deposition in Switzerland

One of the notable aspects in this case was the deposition of a Google employee, Audrey An, who resided in Europe. It was pointed out that she was knowledgeable about the private browsing mode feature and also had knowledge of the documents related to this matter. Ms. An was based in Germany, and it was agreed between the parties that she would travel to Switzerland to be deposed remotely, from Switzerland. Thereafter, the parties requested the United States District Court, which was hearing this matter, to present a letter of request to the relevant Swiss authority to request its assistance in obtaining this evidence, namely, the deposition of the aforementioned Google employee.

Under the Hague Convention on the Taking of Evidence Abroad in Civil or Commercial Matters, which is a multilateral treaty, one state may seek assistance from another Hague Convention signatory state to obtain evidence which is located under the jurisdiction of the latter. The requesting jurisdiction can write a letter of request to the designated central authority of the state in which the evidence that needs to be collected is located, to seek assistance in gathering the pertinent evidence. In this case, both the United States and Switzerland are signatories to the Hague Convention Treaty. As Switzerland has twenty-six separate Central Authorities, one per each canton, the letter of request should be addressed to the appropriate central authority and should be translate from English into the official language of that central authority- either French, German, or Italian.

Therefore, the parties in this action requested the U.S. Court to write a letter to the relevant Swiss authorities to seek their assistance in facilitating this international remote deposition requiring services of an English to German deposition interpreter. The U.S. District Court obliged after noting that the deposition of the witness is pertinent and relevant to this matter. Thereafter, a Letter of Request was written to the designated central authority in Switzerland. In the letter the Court also asked for a German/English deposition interpreter to be made available for the Deposition.

Court-Certified Interpreter Services for International Depositions

Cases like this show that geography is no bar to conducting U.S.-style depositions globally, in various countries around the world. In this day and age, international remote video depositions requiring remote video deposition interpreters have become the norm. International deposition interpreting service All Language Alliance, Inc. provides court-certified interpreters and translators interpreting from and into Persian, German, Mandarin, Turkish, Mongolian. Korean, French, Anuak, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Polish, Spanish, Canadian French, Albanian, Ngambay, Uzbek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Amharic, Rohingya, Azeri, Tagalog, Armenian, and other foreign languages for remote international depositions; check interpreters for interpreted depositions in any foreign language; and on-site deposition interpreters for in-person U.S.-style depositions around the world in all foreign languages.

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