It is important to take precautions when setting up and running a project when security is a concern for both the project and its members. You will need to hide both the existence of the translation project and also the identity of those working on the project, both in the registry, and locally.
Security for the translation project
When registering the project, set the project visibility in the registry to “Confidential.” The project’s visibility in the registry will be limited to the other members of the project and to registry administrators and registration reviewers in the project’s organization and parent organization. These roles are held by people in your organization who respect the security needs of confidential projects and will protect them. The project will not be visible to other members in the registry either in your organization or in other organizations.
Identity of project members
While the names of the project members is securely stored in the registry, it is important to remember that the local copy of Paratext contains the names and roles of all the people involved in the project. If a computer is compromised, this information would be visible to whoever has access to the local copy of Paratext. As a result, it is important to use pseudonyms and email addresses which do not reveal the identity of the team members.
Project Review
Your confidential project will also be reviewed by a root level reviewer to make sure that it complies with the Paratext Terms of Use. If the reviewer notices that the language you are translating is the same as another project in the registry, the project reviewers of the two organizations will be put in touch with each other. You will be encouraged to either work together, or to resolve any conflicts of interest. The Paratext Board of Governors can be called on to mediate in such cases if necessary.
Coming from Paratext 7
If you are coming from a Paratext 7 and have not used a pseudonym previously, it is not possible to change usernames during migration. Instead, you will need to do the migration with the existing user names, and then use a special tool in the advanced file menu Tools ⇒ Advanced… ⇒ Convert Project
In order to convert the names of users in the project, you will need to register for Paratext with the Paratext 7 registration code. This will activate your user registration account in Paratext with the same name as previously. Then you will need to create a new user registration with a pseudonym and different email address. Once both user accounts exist, and are activated for Paratext 8, the project administrator may use the Convert Project tool from the Advanced… menu item under the Tools menu. The converted project must be saved with a new abbreviated name and must be re-registered after the conversion is complete.
