What you are agreeing to, in short

This section is a summary. The numbered clauses below are the terms.

You are agreeing that we may publish a profile of you on the InSignLanguage Marketplace, and you are choosing separately what goes in it and who can see it. You keep your self-employed status, your own rates, your right to send a substitute and your right to decline any assignment. Nothing here stops you working for anyone else, at any time, for any reason.

We are agreeing what we owe you back: briefing material before every assignment, payment within 30 days of a correct invoice, an answer from the bookings team within one business day, and a listing that is never ranked or scored on how often you say yes.

You can take your profile down whenever you want, and we will unpublish it. We cannot delete your assignment and payment history, because we are required to keep it. Clause 14 explains exactly what we can and cannot remove.

1. What these terms cover

1.1 These are the Interpreter Marketplace Terms and Conditions. They govern your Listing on the InSignLanguage Marketplace, what we may publish about you, how Marketplace bookings reach you, and what each of us owes the other when they do.

1.2 They sit alongside the Interpreter Supplier Terms (ISL-LEG-C01), which govern the supply of interpreting itself. Where the two documents cover the same ground, C01 governs the supply relationship and this document governs the Marketplace. Where they could be read to conflict about how a Marketplace booking is made or accepted, this document governs: every Marketplace booking is confirmed by our office, including a repeat booking with a client you have worked with before.

1.3 Listing is optional. You can supply interpreting through InSignLanguage without a Listing. A Listing adds public visibility and, in time, direct bookability.

1.4 These terms do not create any obligation on us to offer you work, or on you to accept any that we offer.

2. Who may hold a Listing

2.1 You may hold a Listing while you meet the eligibility requirements in C01 clause 4: current professional registration appropriate to the work you take, insurance, vetting where the work requires it, continuing professional development, and verified identity and right to work.

2.2 If any of those lapses, your Listing is paused until it is restored. A pause affects what we display and what we offer you. It does not restrict you from working anywhere else.

2.3 We verify your registration against the register that issued it. Where our record and the register disagree, the register governs and we will tell you what we found.

3. Accepting these terms

3.1 You accept these terms by ticking the acceptance box on the Interpreter Work Application Form or on your Marketplace profile, or by written confirmation.

3.2 We record the version number you accepted, the date, and the method. The version in force when an assignment is offered governs that assignment.

3.3 When we change these terms materially we tell listed interpreters at least 30 days before the change takes effect, and the interpreter consultation commitment in our service standards applies. Continuing to hold a Listing after that notice is acceptance of the new version; if you do not accept it, you may withdraw your Listing under clause 14 without penalty.

4. The three permissions

These are three separate permissions. You may give any of them without the others, and you may withdraw any of them without withdrawing the others. We record each one separately, with its date and version.

4.1 Listing — permission to publish a profile

You permit us to publish a Marketplace profile showing your name or preferred name, your registration category and registration number, the specialism areas you have told us you offer, the region you cover, a band for your years in practice, and the number of assignments you have delivered through InSignLanguage.

We do not publish your address, your telephone number, your personal email, your date of birth, your fee rates, your DBS or vetting information, or anything you have told us in confidence about colleagues or clients.

4.2 BSL video — permission to show you signing

You permit us to publish a British Sign Language video of you on your profile.

This is a more personal exposure than a name and a registration category, and we treat it separately for that reason. A video shows your face, your signing and your manner. It is straightforward to copy, and once it is on the open web we cannot fully control where it goes. You may withdraw this permission at any time; we remove the video from the site within a reasonable period, but we cannot recall copies already taken by others.

4.3 Marketing — permission to feature you

You permit us to use your photograph, your biography and your profile content in marketing the Marketplace and your availability on it. This is a non-exclusive, royalty-free, revocable licence limited to that purpose. It does not transfer copyright and it does not give us any interest in your professional reputation. It ends when you withdraw the permission or withdraw your Listing, except for material already in circulation, which we withdraw within a reasonable period.

5. Who can see your profile

5.1 You choose the audience for your Listing. There are three, and they are separate:

• The open web. Your profile is publicly readable and search engines will index it.

• Registered clients. Only people and organisations with an InSignLanguage account can see your profile.

• Other interpreters on the Marketplace. Interpreters who are themselves listed can see your profile. This is the audience that makes co-working possible — see clause 7.

5.2 You may permit one, two or all three. If you tell us nothing, we treat you as having permitted none and your profile stays unpublished.

5.3 This default is deliberate. We would rather your profile stayed unpublished until you have told us what you want than have it appear somewhere you did not choose.

6. Your profile, and what we do to it

6.1 Your profile is built from what you tell us. You confirm it is accurate and that you have the right to give it to us. Keep it current and tell us when something material changes.

6.2 We may edit your profile for factual accuracy, conformity with these terms and your register's code, length and house style. We may decline to publish, or remove, content that is inaccurate, misleading, out of date or inconsistent with those things. We will not change the substance of how you describe your own competence without telling you first.

6.3 Specialisms and what "declared" means. Where a specialism on your profile comes from a professional register, it is a declaration you made to that register and we publish it as such. We do not present a declared specialism as verified, assessed or proven unless we hold evidence for it. Registers make the same caveat themselves.

6.4 What we never publish. Where you have told us you will not accept work in a specialism area, or are not comfortable with it, that is a professional judgement and it is not published, shown to clients, or shown to other interpreters. It is used for one thing: to keep that work from being offered to you. The same applies to anything you tell us under clause 7.4.

6.5 No personal certification claim. InSignLanguage holds ISO 18841:2018 certification as the service provider. Your profile may say that you work to the standard, or that you supply through a certified provider. It must not claim the certification as your own.

6.6 Your registration category. Your profile shows the registration category you hold — for example Registered Sign Language Interpreter (RSLI) or Trainee Sign Language Interpreter (TSLI). That category is the register's, not ours. We publish what the register that issued it holds, and where our record and the register disagree the register governs, as clause 2.3 says. We do not assign, upgrade or downgrade a category, and we do not publish a category we have not been able to verify against the register. If your registration changes, tell us and we update your profile; where we find a discrepancy we tell you what we found before we change anything.

Your category determines which assignments we may offer you, and the fee tier that applies, under C01 clause 7.10 and Annex J (ISL-LEG-F-J). It is not a ranking and it is not displayed as one.

7. Co-working

7.1 Co-working is decided by the service booked, not by the length of the assignment. One-to-One services are delivered by one interpreter. Anything that is not a one-to-one conversation - a programme, several speakers, an audience - is booked as a Co-worked service and worked by two interpreters. Where we assess a One-to-One booking as needing a second interpreter, we re-quote the client before confirming and tell you. That is a quality and wellbeing requirement, not a commercial one, and it follows professional guidance on rest.

7.2 When you are paired with another interpreter, each of you sees the other's identity and contact details, shares the briefing material, and coordinates directly. That is a disclosure of your details to another supplier, and it needs your permission rather than your assumption. Permitting the third audience in clause 5.1 is that permission.

7.3 You may tell us which colleagues you would prefer to work with. We use that in pairing where we can. It does not bind us.

7.4 You may tell us, in confidence, which colleagues you would rather not be paired with. We will never show that to the person named, never put it on any profile, and never disclose it in a form that identifies who made the declaration. We do not ask you for a reason and you do not have to give one. It is used only to avoid the pairing.

7.5 How we handle a declaration under 7.4. We rely on our legitimate interests in safe and effective pairing. Please do not give us a reason — we do not need one, and a reason risks bringing health or other sensitive information into a record that does not need it. We keep the declaration only while both Listings are live and review it annually. If the person named asks us for the personal data we hold about them, we consider that request under the third-party rules in the Data Protection Act 2018 and we do not disclose who made the declaration.

7.6 Mixed pairs. Some co-worked assignments are staffed as a mixed pair: one RSLI leading and carrying responsibility for the assignment, and one TSLI working alongside. Where you are the trainee in such a pair, that is stated to you and to the client at the point of allocation. Where the Registered interpreter becomes unavailable, we do not proceed with two trainees.

8. How bookings reach you

There are two ways an assignment can reach you. Which one applies to you is stated on your profile and you can change it.

8.1 What we owe you, in both modes

Before any assignment, whichever mode it came through:

• Briefing and preparation material, provided before the assignment, not on the day. Preparation is part of the service we sell, not a favour we ask of you.

• The information you need to decide: date, times, location or platform, the setting, who the client is, expected duration, whether it is co-worked and with whom, and anything about the assignment that could affect your decision to take it.

• Payment within 30 days of a correct invoice, at your rates.

• An answer from the bookings team within one business day.

• Support during the assignment, including if you are working alone.

• Sight of the feedback recorded about your work, and a conversation about it.

If we have not given you the briefing material, you are not in breach for declining or for withdrawing from the assignment.

8.2 Manually accepted bookings

8.2.1 This is the standard mode and the current default for the whole Marketplace. Every request from a client is confirmed by our office before any interpreter is committed to it. A client cannot book you directly.

8.2.2 We send you an invitation with the information in 8.1. You accept or decline it. Nothing commits you until you accept.

8.2.3 We ask for a reply within one business day for assignments more than a week away, and four business hours for assignments sooner than that, so that we can cover the work if you say no. Those are requests, not obligations, and missing them is not a breach.

8.2.4 If you do not reply, nothing happens. Silence is a decline and we offer the assignment elsewhere.

8.3 Automatically accepted bookings

We do not offer this mode. Assignments are offered to you and you decide. Nothing is booked into your diary without your agreement, and silence is never treated as acceptance — if you do not reply, we offer the assignment elsewhere.

If we introduce automatic acceptance in future it will work by calendar sync. You publish the times you are available and a client books into them, so an automatic booking can only ever land in a slot you had already opened. It would be opt-in, you could switch it off at any time without explanation, and we would tell you before it went live.

We will not introduce a mode that commits you to work you have not agreed to take.

8.4 What we will not do in either mode

8.4.1 We do not publish, score or rank interpreters on how often they accept. No acceptance rate appears on your profile, in search results, in any ordering of interpreters, or in any client-facing figure.

8.4.2 Declining on competence grounds is never held against you. If an assignment is outside your competence, your experience or your comfort, declining it is the professionally correct thing to do and we treat it that way. It does not affect your Listing, your position in any list, or what you are offered next. This repeats a promise already made in C01 clause 16A and it is repeated here because a marketplace creates pressure in the opposite direction.

8.4.3 We do not charge you for declining an assignment, at any notice, in either mode.

8.4.4 Our service level commitments to clients are measured against InSignLanguage, never against you individually. A missed target is ours.

8.4.5 We do not guarantee clients cover at less than 24 hours' notice, and we do not guarantee face-to-face cover at less than two weeks' notice, because those are promises you would have to keep.

9. What we expect of you

9.1 Work within your competence and your register's code of conduct, and tell us when an assignment is outside it.

9.2 Read the briefing material before the assignment.

9.3 Arrive, or join, in time to start at the booked time. Tell us as soon as you know if you will be late.

9.4 Take the rest breaks the assignment requires, and work with your co-worker on how the assignment is shared. Where a booking is co-worked, that is priced in and is not something you have to negotiate on the day.

9.5 Keep everything you learn on an assignment confidential, under C01 and your register's code.

9.6 Tell us promptly if your registration, insurance, vetting or right to work changes.

9.7 Do not hold yourself out as an employee, agent or representative of InSignLanguage. You are an independent supplier and these terms do not change that.

9.8 Your right to send a substitute is unaffected. C01 gives you an unfettered right of substitution and nothing in these terms limits it, including in the automatic acceptance mode. If you accept an assignment and send a suitably qualified substitute, you have performed. You are a supplier, and where you take an assignment through us, a sub-contractor. Nothing in the Marketplace changes that, or the substitution right in C01.

10. Your fees

10.1 Your rates are yours. We do not set them, cap them, or require you to match another interpreter.

10.2 The price a client sees on the Marketplace is our price to the client, not your fee. The two are different figures and we do not publish your fee.

10.3 Payment terms are in C01: within 30 days of a correct invoice.

10.4 Tier and the rate card. Annex J relates the two registration categories to each other for pricing: a TSLI service fee is 85% of the equivalent RSLI service fee, and a mixed pair is the sum of the two tier fees rather than a doubled RSLI fee. That is our pricing to the client and our expectation of cost. It does not override 10.1. Where the rate you declared differs from the rate card we discuss it with you; we do not adjust your declared rate unilaterally, and you are never required to accept a fee below it. In a mixed pair each interpreter is paid at their own tier.

11. Non-circumvention

11.1 Non-circumvention is governed by Annex G (Restrictive Covenants and Schedule G), which applies to your engagement through C01. It applies to Marketplace work in exactly the same way and on the same terms. This document does not add to it, extend it, or restate it.

11.2 What that means in practice, without varying Annex G:

• The Marketplace makes introductions between clients and interpreters that neither would otherwise have made. Annex G protects that introduction for a defined period and provides a fee if it is bypassed.

• Both windows in Annex G run to six months.

• The obligation is mutual. Annex G binds clients on the same axis it binds interpreters.

• Relationships you already had before we introduced you are carved out — provided you told us about the relationship in writing at or before the first assignment, which is the condition Annex G sets. If you already worked with a client before the Marketplace, tell us and that relationship stays yours.

• Nothing in Annex G, and nothing here, stops you working for other agencies, other providers or direct clients. There is no exclusivity of any kind.

• Nothing stops you, or any client, contacting Access to Work or any funder directly about their own case.

11.3 We maintain an introductions log recording when and how each interpreter–client pairing was first introduced, so that any question under Annex G is answered from a record rather than from recollection. You may ask us what that record says about you.

11.4 Annex G governs. Clause 11.2 is a plain-language summary of it, and where the summary and Annex G differ, Annex G applies.

12. If something goes wrong

12.1 Missed and cancelled assignments are handled as a matter of reliability, not as a financial penalty. There is no fine, no deduction from unrelated fees, and no charge.

12.2 The route is: allocation pause → a conversation about what happened and what support would help → reinstatement. The conversation is led by Flo Harrison.

12.3 An allocation pause stops us offering you work and displaying your profile. It does not stop you working. You remain free to work for anyone else throughout, and there is no obligation on you to attend the conversation.

12.4 Annex I governs cancellation, no-shows and lateness, including the replacement cost provision, which is a residual right for evidenced out-of-pocket cost and is not the primary response.

12.5 If you disagree with a decision about your Listing, say so and we will look at it again. The escalation and appeal route is in C01 clauses 15 and 16.

13. Complaints and feedback about your work

13.1 Client feedback about your assignments is recorded and you can see it.

13.2 Where a complaint concerns your work, you are told, you are given the substance of it, and you get to respond before any conclusion is reached.

13.3 Feedback is used for development. Today it is not published on your profile and is not turned into a public rating or star score. If we decide to publish ratings in future we will tell you at least 30 days beforehand under clause 3.3, and you may withdraw your Listing under clause 14 without penalty if you would rather not take part.

14. Taking your profile down — and what we cannot remove

This is stated here, at the outset, rather than when someone asks.

14.1 Unpublishing is yours to decide and is immediate. Tell us and we take your profile off the site. You do not need a reason. We unpublish within one business day and we confirm when it is done. Withdrawing your Listing does not cancel an assignment you have already accepted, which you still perform or substitute.

14.2 Erasure is not the same thing and we cannot promise it. When your profile comes down we delete the profile content — your photograph, your biography, your video, your published specialisms. We cannot delete:

• assignment records, because they evidence a service delivered to a client and are needed for that client's own records and for our ISO 9001 and ISO 18841 obligations;

• payment, invoice and tax records, because we are required by law to keep them;

• a record of your registration and vetting — the certificate number, its date, the level of check and the outcome — because it evidences that a properly qualified interpreter was allocated, and we keep that record for seven years. The DBS certificate itself is not kept that long: its content is destroyed once the check has been recorded, in line with DBS guidance;

• complaint and safeguarding records, for as long as they must be kept.

14.3 Those records are retained under the retention schedule in the Privacy Notice, are not published, and are not used to market anything. Your data protection rights, including the right to ask for erasure and to have any refusal explained, are set out in the Privacy Notice and are not reduced by this clause.

15. Your data

15.1 Your published profile is public to the audience you chose in clause 5. The personal data behind it is processed under the Privacy Notice and its marketplace overlay.

15.2 DBS, vetting and other criminal-records data is handled under our Article 10 appropriate policy document and is never published.

15.3 Your confidential declarations under clauses 6.4 and 7.4 are held on the same footing as anything else you tell us in confidence and are not disclosed.

16. General

16.1 These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales and the courts of England and Wales have jurisdiction.

16.2 If any provision is held unenforceable, the rest continues in force and the unenforceable provision is severed.

16.3 These terms, C01, Annex G, Annex I and the Privacy Notice are the whole of the agreement between us about the Marketplace.

InSignLanguage Ltd · 26 Domum Road, Portsmouth PO2 0QZ · Company number 10943637 · VAT registration number GB 298 6629 31 · ICO registration ZC163713

Related policies: Lone Working Policy (ISL-LEG-F-B) and DBS and Vetting Policy (ISL-LEG-F-E).