To translate a client's document with ChatGPT or DeepL without sending their personal data, translate a safe copy. Replace names, addresses and ID numbers with placeholders such as Person_1, translate the text, check that every placeholder came through unchanged, then put the real names back into the translation.

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What the translation services do with your text

A translation service reads the whole document, so everything in it reaches the service. What happens next depends on the plan. As of October 2026, DeepL's privacy policy says:

  • The free DeepL Translator processes texts for a limited time to train and improve DeepL's models, and its terms do not allow texts that contain personal data of any kind.
  • With DeepL Pro, texts are kept only as long as the translation takes, then deleted, and they are not used to improve the service.

For ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini, what is kept and used for training depends on the plan and the settings. Our guide to AI data settings covers each of them.

A safe copy keeps the client's identity out of all of these, whatever the plan.

Make a safe copy

  1. Create a case for the client in ClientSafe and add the document. ClientSafe reads PDFs, including scans, Word, Excel and PowerPoint files, emails and more.
  2. Review what it found: names, companies, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, account and ID numbers, dates of birth. Untick matches that are not personal data and mark anything it missed.
  3. Copy the safe copy, or save it as a Markdown file if the document is long.

A placeholder replaces the name, but other details can still identify a person: a job title, a small town, an unusual event. Our list of what to remove before a document goes to AI covers them.

Translate it

In ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini, paste the safe copy with an instruction like this:

Translate this text into German.
Keep every placeholder such as Person_1 or Company_2 exactly as written:
do not translate, inflect or rename it.

A chat model can shorten or skip passages in a long document. Translate a long document section by section, and compare the length of each translated section with the original.

In DeepL, paste the safe copy into the translator. DeepL does not take instructions like this, so the placeholder check below matters even more.

Check the placeholders

Before you restore anything, search the translation for each placeholder in the safe copy. Typical problems:

  • A placeholder was translated or split: "Person_1" became "Persona_1" or "Person 1".
  • A grammatical ending was added, as in the German genitive "Person_1s".
  • A placeholder is missing because the sentence around it was rephrased.

Fix them in the translation, so that each placeholder appears exactly as it did in the safe copy. A placeholder that changed will not be restored.

Put the real names back

Paste the translation into ClientSafe in the same case, and the real names come back. The restored translation is a client document again: keep it with the client's files. Our guide to restoring real names covers the details.

Fix grammar around the names

The translation was written around placeholders, so it could not adapt to the real names. In languages with grammatical gender or cases, such as German, French, Spanish or Arabic, read every sentence with a restored name:

  • Pronouns and endings that agree with the person's gender.
  • Names that need a case ending or an article in the target language.
  • Company names that should stay in their original form.

For a contract, a court document or anything that will be signed, have a professional translator review the result.

Frequently asked questions

Can I translate the original file in DeepL Pro instead?

DeepL's policy allows personal data in DeepL Pro only when data protection law gives you a basis for it. A safe copy avoids that question for names, addresses and ID numbers.

Does the layout of the document survive?

A safe copy is text. Headings, lists and tables survive in Markdown, but fonts, page layout and images do not. If you need the original layout, rebuild it from the restored translation.

Can I translate several documents of one case together?

Yes. Within a case, the same person has the same placeholder in every document, so the translations stay consistent.

ClientSafe replaces personal data in client documents with placeholders on your PC, and puts the real names back into the translation when you paste it in. Detection is not perfect, so review the list before you copy.