Mendip Media Group Ltd (trading as Appen)

Appen Data Annotation Platform

Appen provides data services and technologies for the AI lifecycle, including data collection, annotation/labelling and model testing/validation using human-in-the-loop resources. Customers can purchase a license (SaaS) for our enterprise-ready data annotation platform or access managed services, using Appen technology and tooling, across a diverse set of industries and use cases

Features

  • On-Premise, Private Cloud and Hybrid Cloud deployment options
  • Machine learning assisted data labeling
  • Image and Video annotation (bounding box, PLSS, polygons)
  • Text annotation (NLP, entity extraction/NER, OCR)
  • Option to use internal workforce or Appen's secure workforce
  • Option to annotate Radar, SAR and other uncommon data types
  • Audio and speech-to-text
  • Sentiment Analysis

Benefits

  • Secure your data annotation workflow using on-premise deployment method
  • Annotate all data types on one central data annotation platform
  • Leverage NDA channels and ISO 27001 workforce for sensitive data
  • Quickly and securely access the platform using single sign-on
  • Flexible use of internal workforce and/or Appen's skilled annotators
  • Dedicated customer success team for end to end support
  • Built-in quality controls to ensure high quality annotated data
  • Enterprise Analytics and reporting for full visibility and project management
  • Leverage organization admin tools for workforce management
  • Employ highly-skilled professional services engineers to develop new annotation workflows

Pricing

£30,000 to £3,000,000 a licence a year

  • Free trial available

Service documents

Request an accessible format
If you use assistive technology (such as a screen reader) and need versions of these documents in a more accessible format, email the supplier at bdeurope@appen.com. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.

Framework

G-Cloud 13

Service ID

7 4 1 2 0 1 7 0 7 7 3 1 6 0 7

Contact

Mendip Media Group Ltd (trading as Appen) Sarah Lowe
Telephone: +44 (0)7803 406762
Email: bdeurope@appen.com

Service scope

Software add-on or extension
No
Cloud deployment model
  • Public cloud
  • Private cloud
  • Hybrid cloud
Service constraints
Planned maintenance windows are typically done no more than once a quarter for no longer than an hour.
System requirements
Depending on deployment method

User support

Email or online ticketing support
Email or online ticketing
Support response times
For Appen Dedicated on-premise platform we offer a 24/7 Personal Support and Escalation Service over email.
User can manage status and priority of support tickets
No
Phone support
Yes
Phone support availability
24 hours, 7 days a week
Web chat support
Web chat
Web chat support availability
9 to 5 (UK time), Monday to Friday
Web chat support accessibility standard
None or don’t know
How the web chat support is accessible
Web chat does not include special characters (Complex symbols, mathematical symbols, emojis etc). Users can link to relevant articles within our help center.
Web chat accessibility testing
N/A
Onsite support
No
Support levels
Tier 1: [Included] Standard Support - 6am - 5pm for all standard business days
Tier 2: [Custom Pricing] 24/7 Support - 24 hours, 7 days a week access to support.
Support available to third parties
Yes

Onboarding and offboarding

Getting started
We are able to provide onsite training as well as online training. For continued support our customers are able to use the Appen Success Centre resources and customer support channels.
Service documentation
Yes
Documentation formats
HTML
End-of-contract data extraction
Data can be extracted directly through our platform or via API. Additionally, we support any customers right to deletion and may delete all customer data upon request and when contract ends.
End-of-contract process
Our standard on-premise solution includes the following:
Machine learning assisted data labelling, SSO, Organization Administration and Management tooling, Enterprise Analytics and reporting, NDA and ISO 27001 Channels for sensitive data, Contributor targeting based on geolocation and skill set, API access, Annotation of up to 5M data units per year, and 60 hours of professional services for training and on-boarding

Using the service

Web browser interface
Yes
Supported browsers
  • Internet Explorer 11
  • Microsoft Edge
  • Firefox
  • Chrome
  • Safari
Application to install
No
Designed for use on mobile devices
No
Service interface
Yes
User support accessibility
None or don’t know
Description of service interface
Service is available via web-based UI and RESTful JSON APIs.
Accessibility standards
None or don’t know
Description of accessibility
Service is accessible via the internet or local intranet.
Accessibility testing
N/A
API
Yes
What users can and can't do using the API
Our API functionality mirrors the functionality of our web-based UI. More information on our API can be found here: https://developer.appen.com/
API documentation
Yes
API documentation formats
  • Open API (also known as Swagger)
  • HTML
API sandbox or test environment
No
Customisation available
Yes
Description of customisation
Users are able to customise annotation jobs to meet their specifications. All users will be able to to customise. Customisation details are provided in our help centre, and can be completed within our standard data annotation platform.

Scaling

Independence of resources
Our platform is built for the purpose of large scale annotation workflows. In the unlikely event of service disruption, customers are informed and kept updated via email. A record of incident reports can be accessed via the website and will be communicated to you by your Customer Success Manager.

Analytics

Service usage metrics
Yes
Metrics types
Once your job has run, you’ll be able to download full and aggregated reports of every data row. You’ll see your original source data as you uploaded it, plus all the individual annotations and judgments our platforms provides. These reports are customisable after job completion and can be downloaded whenever you need them.
Reporting types
API access

Resellers

Supplier type
Not a reseller

Staff security

Staff security clearance
Other security clearance
Government security clearance
Up to Developed Vetting (DV)

Asset protection

Knowledge of data storage and processing locations
Yes
Data storage and processing locations
  • United Kingdom
  • Other locations
User control over data storage and processing locations
No
Datacentre security standards
Complies with a recognised standard (for example CSA CCM version 3.0)
Penetration testing frequency
At least once a year
Penetration testing approach
Another external penetration testing organisation
Protecting data at rest
Physical access control, complying with SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
Data sanitisation process
Yes
Data sanitisation type
Deleted data can’t be directly accessed
Equipment disposal approach
Complying with a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v.30, CAS (Sanitisation) or ISO/IEC 27001

Data importing and exporting

Data export approach
In Batch as CSV or JSON through our platform UI. You can also integrate via our API to receive data as it completes using a webhook or in batch form through our API.
Data export formats
  • CSV
  • Other
Other data export formats
JSON
Data import formats
  • CSV
  • ODF
  • Other
Other data import formats
  • TSV
  • XLS
  • XLSX
  • JSON

Data-in-transit protection

Data protection between buyer and supplier networks
  • Private network or public sector network
  • TLS (version 1.2 or above)
Data protection within supplier network
TLS (version 1.2 or above)

Availability and resilience

Guaranteed availability
We have a SLA guaranteeing Appen's platform services shall be available and functional 99.95% of the time. If service availability falls below this threshold, users will be refunded a percentage of their annual license.
Approach to resilience
Additional information is available upon request.
Outage reporting
Outages are reported via a public dashboard. Any significant outages will also be communicated via email alerts.

Identity and authentication

User authentication needed
Yes
User authentication
Username or password
Access restrictions in management interfaces and support channels
Access is granted to individuals based on roles/needs.
 
Within Appen, support teams have access to customer data for troubleshooting purposes. Only qualified contributors who are required to label customer data have access to it for the purpose of providing annotations.
Access restriction testing frequency
At least once a year
Management access authentication
  • Identity federation with existing provider (for example Google Apps)
  • Username or password
  • Other
Description of management access authentication
Single Sign-On integration with Okta, OneLogin, Azure Active Directory, and other SAML 2.0 compliant identity providers.

Audit information for users

Access to user activity audit information
Users contact the support team to get audit information
How long user audit data is stored for
At least 12 months
Access to supplier activity audit information
Users contact the support team to get audit information
How long supplier audit data is stored for
At least 12 months
How long system logs are stored for
At least 12 months

Standards and certifications

ISO/IEC 27001 certification
No
ISO 28000:2007 certification
No
CSA STAR certification
No
PCI certification
No
Cyber essentials
No
Cyber essentials plus
No
Other security certifications
Yes
Any other security certifications
SOC 2 Type II

Security governance

Named board-level person responsible for service security
Yes
Security governance certified
Yes
Security governance standards
Other
Other security governance standards
SOC 2 Type II
Information security policies and processes
Information security policies are written to support ISO 27001 compliant implementations. Software is developed with Secure Software Development Lifecycle (SSDLC) practices, including static and dynamic testing.

Additional information can be made available upon request.

Operational security

Configuration and change management standard
Conforms to a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v3.0 or SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
Configuration and change management approach
We use internal ticketing systems for tracking changes and audit purposes. We also have a continuous delivery process using Jenkins to test and deploy code.
Vulnerability management type
Conforms to a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v3.0 or SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
Vulnerability management approach
Threat assessments are informed in part by industry standard definitions (e.g. CVSS base score), and based on a framework taking into account impact, exposure, and implementation details.
Identified vulnerabilities are assessed and priorities for resolution based on a stated internal SLA.
Threat intelligence concerning applications and infrastructure is based tools drawing from publicly available resources (e.g ISC-CERT, Mitre's CVE database, and NIST's NVD).
Protective monitoring type
Supplier-defined controls
Protective monitoring approach
Appen has a 24x7x365 security incident response team that monitors and responds to production incidents based on clearly defined and documented roles and responsibilities. We notify customers within 24 hours of detecting a breach.
Incident management type
Supplier-defined controls
Incident management approach
Any incident should be reported to security@appen.com

Secure development

Approach to secure software development best practice
Conforms to a recognised standard, but self-assessed

Public sector networks

Connection to public sector networks
No

Social Value

Fighting climate change

Fighting climate change

We acknowledge the risk associated with climate change and are committed to playing our part in supporting the transition to net zero emissions. We completed our first GHG emissions inventory in 2021, covering Scope 1 and 2 and completed our first CDP submission. In 2022 we are focused on setting our pathway to achieve net zero emissions by 2030.
Covid-19 recovery

Covid-19 recovery

In response to the COVID-19 Pandemic we implemented flexible responses to the changing environment such as working from home. As the pandemic developed we continually reviewed and amended our processes to provide safe frameworks for the return to office and resumption of some of our in-person work.
We also joined with other large data companies like Amazon, Facebook, Google and Microsoft to work with Translators without Borders on sourcing and annotating relevant COVID data for 38 languages helping to produce translated datasets of 70,000 key COVID-19 terms and phrases which were made publicly accessible for translation professionals and for training state-of-the-art machine translation models.
Tackling economic inequality

Tackling economic inequality

We invest in Impact Sourcing Partnerships between our customers and community partners, bringing in people in who would not otherwise have opportunities for meaningful employment. Our initiatives target communities which may currently be underrepresented in digital work including youth in developing countries, people with disabilities and refugee communities.
Equal opportunity

Equal opportunity

Our remote work model provides opportunities for people of all abilities and backgrounds. We are proud of our hugely diverse crowd which spans many cultures, ethnicities, age groups, life stages and occupations. We are an active supporter of people with disabilities. Through our Philippines operations, we employ over 200 people with partial or full hearing impairment to support image annotation work, and have now expanded this group to over 200 people.
Wellbeing

Wellbeing

We have a range of policies to support our employees wellbeing. We have recently engaged meQuilibrium to assist our employees with resilience and stress management along with our other initiatives such as support services for family planning and our employee assistance program.

Pricing

Price
£30,000 to £3,000,000 a licence a year
Discount for educational organisations
No
Free trial available
Yes
Description of free trial
For our Standard SaaS product we do provide a gratis pilot period.

Service documents

Request an accessible format
If you use assistive technology (such as a screen reader) and need versions of these documents in a more accessible format, email the supplier at bdeurope@appen.com. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.