Translate a privacy policy into Simplified Chinese

What changes when a privacy policy goes into Chinese

Simplified Chinese has no spaces between words and uses full-width punctuation: ， 。 ： ；. Titles of laws take book-title marks 《》, so "Article 6 GDPR" becomes something like 《通用数据保护条例》第6条. Dates run year, month, day: "1 March 2025" is written 2025年3月1日.

Chinese text uses two to three times fewer characters than English, but each character is wider, so the space taken on the page barely changes. A six-page policy stays roughly six pages.

Chinese has a single plural category (CLDR other). Constructions such as "cookie(s)" or "recipient or recipients" simply disappear: Cookie and 接收方 cover both. Italics are hard to read in hanzi, so Chinese documents usually rely on bold for emphasis.

Data protection vocabulary in Chinese

A privacy policy rests on a handful of terms that must stay consistent throughout. Common Chinese equivalents are:

• personal data: 个人信息 (Chinese law speaks of "personal information");
• sensitive data: 敏感个人信息;
• consent: 同意; explicit consent: 明示同意;
• right to erasure: 删除权;
• international transfer: 跨境传输.

One genuine trap: the GDPR uses "data controller" (数据控制者), while China's Personal Information Protection Law (PIPL), in force since November 2021, uses 个人信息处理者. The translation follows your source: a policy drafted for the GDPR, or for UK or US rules, remains that policy in Chinese. If you target users in mainland China, have a lawyer check that the content meets local requirements, such as separate consent for certain processing.

What Manuce delivers, and what it does not

Your policy is handled by Thémis, the engine specialised in legal texts. You receive:

• the file in its original format (Word, PDF, PowerPoint, Excel, plain text, Markdown, HTML, RTF or CSV), layout included: numbered headings, retention-period tables, lists of recipients;
• a translation delivered within minutes for a typical document such as a policy of around 2,500 words, then kept in your client area.

What Manuce does not do:

• no sworn or certified translation by an accredited translator, should an authority or partner require one;
• no legal adaptation to Chinese law: the text is translated, not redrafted;
• no reading of scanned PDFs (images without selectable text);
• no Traditional Chinese in the same language slot: for Taiwan or Hong Kong it is a separate language, which you can add as a second language (the 20% discount then applies to the whole order).

Preparing the file

• Start from the final source. A policy still under legal review will need translating again once it changes.
• Native file over PDF. If you have the Word document or the HTML page, upload that: the text is read directly. A scanned PDF will not be read.
• Fonts. A Latin-only font has no Chinese characters, so Word or the browser will substitute another font. If appearance matters, specify a font that supports Simplified Chinese.
• Items to leave untouched. Email addresses (privacy@example.com), URLs, company name, registration number: check in the free sample, then in the full translation, that they are unchanged. A company name with no official Chinese name stays in Latin script.

Checking the Chinese version

Even without reading Chinese, you can run several checks:

1. Compare the structure: same number of sections, tables and numbered lists.
2. Look for half-width commas and full stops (, .) inside Chinese sentences: they should only appear in addresses, URLs and numbers.
3. Check dates, periods ("3 years" becomes 3年) and article references.
4. Open the file on a machine without Chinese fonts: empty boxes point to a font issue, not a translation error.
5. Have a Chinese-speaking lawyer review it if the policy must be enforceable against users in China.

In practice

1. Export the final version of your policy as Word, HTML or a text-based PDF.
2. Upload the file, select Simplified Chinese and see the quote based on the exact word count.
3. Read the free sample: key terms, dates and addresses left intact.
4. Pay, then download the Chinese version from your client area.
5. Check fonts, punctuation and structure, and have the substance reviewed by a lawyer if needed.