(Update) Exposed: professional memberships allegedly held by Applied Language Solutions
There are really no limits to remarkable discoveries we make about Capita-owned Applied Language Solutions. They are very keen to brag about the number of linguists they have on their books, about the new contracts they win thanks to their cutting edge practices and today a colleague has pointed me to their page about their professional memberships.
ALS claim they are members of the Chartered Institute of Linguists. The Institute informs us it doesn’t have corporate members.
ALS state they are members of the Institute of Translation and Interpreting. Yet, they could not be found in its online directory. The ITI tells us “The Directory of Members is up to date and correct.”
We are currently waiting to hear from the American Translators Association (ATA) to confirm or deny the fact that ALS are among its members.
The fact that ALS gets expelled from organisations is no longer a precedent. The UN Global Compact, a strategic policy initiative for businesses that are committed to aligning their operations and strategies with universally accepted principles in the areas of human rights, labour, environment and anti-corruption, has already expelled ALS.
Once again, as of 30th June 2012, below is the list of professional organisations ALS claim to be a member of (screenshot taken on 29th June 2012) - how many more facts are they misrepresenting?
UPDATE: Since this article was originally published on Saturday, 30th June 2012, the page with ALS's professional memberships suddenly changed on Monday, 2nd July 2012, and the links to the ITI and CIoL have been removed. Full marks to Applied Language Solutions for reading linguistlounge.org and correcting, but they were there for ages and were clearly misleading. Those logos could not have put themselves on the website. And now where have they gone?
