Microlink PC (UK) Ltd

SignGlasses Live BSL Video Platform

SignGlasses takes pride in offering a versatile and user-centric platform, revolutionising communication accessibility. Our platform seamlessly integrates cutting-edge technology, empowering users, administrators, interpreters, and captioners to connect effortlessly in various scenarios.

SignGlasses delivers sign language interpretation or captions with or without cutting edge smart glasses technology.

Features

• Live sign language interpreting and captioning
• Optional use of smart glasses technology
• Remote interpretation and learning platform
• Record lectures and meetings
• Bookmark parts of a lecture with notetaking
• Searchable Transcripts and Notes, retrieve comprehensive transcripts instantly
• SignGlasses Live: supports up to six users and two practitioners
• Access to invoice reports, session status, add/remove users/practitioner.
• Live support available during business hours
• User guides, walk-throughs, FAQ, and other support available 24/7

Benefits

• User Friendly
• Immediate Access
• Practitioner Compatibility
• Certified Interpreters with full background checks
• Secured Communications
• 24/7/365 Availability
• No complex setup or equipment required
• Affordable Pricing
• Allows deaf/hard-of-hearing individuals to communicate fully in their environment.

£100 a unit an hour

Service documents

• Pricing document

  PDF

• Service definition document

  PDF

• Terms and conditions

  PDF

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 sam@microlinkpc.com. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.

Framework

G-Cloud 14

Service ID

917375918751074

Contact

Hazel Knights
02380240300
sam@microlinkpc.com

Service scope

• Software add-on or extension: No
• Cloud deployment model: Public cloud
• Service constraints: No service constraints - the platform configures extensively and has multiple integration options.
• System requirements: Users/practitioners access the platform from a laptop/tablet, smartphone or smartglasses

User support

• Email or online ticketing support: Email or online ticketing
• Support response times: SignGlasses strives for immediate response to questions, through chat or email. Response times after hours may be longer, and we strive for one-hour responses during afterhours.
• User can manage status and priority of support tickets: No
• Phone support: Yes
• Phone support availability: 9 to 5 (UK time), Monday to Friday
• 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: Some chat capabilities are available through the platform, during use. For example, deaf or hard of hearing (DHH) users can chat with interpreters and captioners during a session. They can also contact support during a session for help.
• Web chat accessibility testing: All of our users are deaf or hard of hearing (DHH), and our technology works well for the DHH community
• Onsite support: No
• Support levels: SignGlasses recognizes that timely support is critical when delivering communication access services. Accordingly, SignGlasses provides the ability for administrative personnel, students, CART captioners, and interpreters to chat in real time during a session with our support team. Further, we provide a monitored text number for administrative personnel, students, and service providers to use if they need any type of session or administrative support.; ; SignGlasses works pre-emptively to train Users on how to use the SignGlasses platform, which ensures that all stakeholders have an optimal experience.
• Support available to third parties: Yes

Onboarding and offboarding

• Getting started: SignGlasses is prepared to take administrative personnel through the following three phase onboarding process.; ; 1. Planning; ● Reconfirmation of service expectations & requirements; ● Identification of administrative personnel across locations; ● Review of historical service needs ; ● Review of current service needs; ● Map existing system of service provision; ● Plan and set date(s) for orientation; ● Establish communication plan; ; 2. Transition; ● Initial communication of transition; ● Announcement of orientation date(s); ● Load current service requests into service management system; ● Train stakeholders on new system provision (comparing with previous); ● Announce date of integration; ● Host continued training; ● Ongoing communication of tips, tricks, corrections; ; 3. Integration; ● Support of stakeholders successful use of system; ● Monitor end user satisfaction with service delivery; ● Monitor administrative personnel system performance; ● Host stakeholder feedback session; ● Integrate feedback into process and system; ; Personnel; All sign language interpreters and working on the SignGlasses platform are rigorously screened, required to demonstrate proof of their credentials and degrees, have successfully passed a background check, and are required to provide annual validation that their certification remains in good standing.
• Service documentation: Yes
• Documentation formats: HTML
• End-of-contract data extraction: On request by email at any time or at end of contract. Microlink will ask the organisation to specify any format extract required and usually supplies data outputs in .csv format.
• End-of-contract process: Upon end/termination of contracts, and platform extensions and API's, plus user accounts, are automatically de-activated and the user is notified via email or other means as selected by the user. Any user-specific application data within the platform (note this excludes personal/sensitive data) will be only be retained in accordance with our data retention policy to facilitate any specific requirements for extraction of data.

Using the service

• Web browser interface: Yes
• Supported browsers:
  • Microsoft Edge
  • Firefox
  • Chrome
• Application to install: Yes
• Compatible operating systems:
  • Android
  • IOS
• Designed for use on mobile devices: Yes
• Differences between the mobile and desktop service: You can access the service in a browser on both mobile and desktop. There is also a mobile app available. The mobile app supports core functionality like video calls. Accessing the service with a browser has wider functionality including scheduling calls.
• Service interface: Yes
• User support accessibility: None or don’t know
• Description of service interface: The interface can be used through the browser or the mobile app.
• Accessibility standards: None or don’t know
• Description of accessibility: SignGlasses platform and all of our services are designed for and used exclusively by people with accessibility requirements, specifically deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) users.
• Accessibility testing: All of our users are deaf or hard of hearing (DHH), and our technology is tested extensively with the DHH community.
• API: No
• Customisation available: No

Scaling

• Independence of resources: The platform is hosted in the Microsoft Azure cloud and benefits from their latest platform and infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) offerings. This allows us to monitor service demand in real time, and to effect additional system or user resources accordingly. The platform itself has been designed around a modular architecture, facilitating platform performance management at modular level, which in turn allows dynamic scaling up (or down) of user-specifics within the platform.

Analytics

• Service usage metrics: No

Resellers

• Supplier type: Not a reseller

Staff security

• Staff security clearance: Staff screening not performed
• Government security clearance: None

Asset protection

• Knowledge of data storage and processing locations: Yes
• Data storage and processing locations: Other locations
• User control over data storage and processing locations: No
• Datacentre security standards: Managed by a third party
• Penetration testing frequency: Never
• Protecting data at rest: Encryption of all physical media
• Data sanitisation process: No
• Equipment disposal approach: In-house destruction process

Data importing and exporting

• Data export approach: By email request to us under a pre-approved procedure for this. We will arrange a secure File Transfer of the data.
• Data export formats: CSV
• Data import formats: Other
• Other data import formats: SignGlasses platform doesn’t offer the ability to import data

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: The SignGlasses platform facilitates remote CART and remote sign language interpreting services via laptop computers, tablets, mobile devices, and smart glasses. The SignGlasses platform is optimized to deliver services via a Google Chrome web browser and performs best when students have access to dedicated internet connections that exceed 10 Mbps upload and download speed.
• Approach to resilience: We use public cloud infrastructure with scalable servers. We also have point-in-time recovery available for our database.
• Outage reporting: Any outage is reported by dynamic email alerting. Outage alerts are sent to pre-registered user(s) at the client by the support desk.; ; When outages extend beyond a reasonable period, customer support proactively reaches out to affected customers.

Identity and authentication

• User authentication needed: Yes
• User authentication: Username or password
• Access restrictions in management interfaces and support channels: We utilize role based access, and account based access to limit resources to the associated accounts.
• Access restriction testing frequency: At least every 6 months
• Management access authentication: Username or password

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: No

Security governance

• Named board-level person responsible for service security: Yes
• Security governance certified: Yes
• Security governance standards: ISO/IEC 27001
• Information security policies and processes: Microlink is ISO 27001:2013 certified and maintains information security policies accordingly. ; ; This includes the Business Management System Manual, which details the scope, the objectives, the responsibilities and the risk rating and management, as well as the mobile device policy, clear desk, access, teleworking and encryption management policy. ; ; Several other policies are also in force, including Change and Release procedure, document retention policy, incident management procedure, information classification and handling policy and the physical security policy. ; ; Finally, Microlink maintains a detailed Risk register for logging of events and triggering any preventative/remedial measures. There is a documented escalation path from operator level right through to our board with dynamic stakeholder alerting at each level.

Operational security

• Configuration and change management standard: Supplier-defined controls
• Configuration and change management approach: Changes are tracked in version control software. Changes are assessed by at least one software engineer separate from the engineer proposing the changes. We have automated tools that run for each group of changes to identify potential security issues. The deployment of approved changes is logged.
• Vulnerability management type: Undisclosed
• Vulnerability management approach: We have software that monitors potential threats in all of our software dependencies / 3rd party libraries that we rely on. When a report comes in regarding a vulnerability that affects us, we handle it promptly (within days).
• Protective monitoring type: Undisclosed
• Protective monitoring approach: Our protective monitoring approach includes a monitoring system that provides real-time status information and alerting to our operations team. Logging is aggregated centrally to enable effective search and correlation of events to take place, and logs are mirrored to a remote location to prevent tampering.; In addition, we monitor and log all data access, log on activity and other metrics to highlight a potential compromise.
• Incident management type: Undisclosed
• Incident management approach: Incident management is handled by the engineering team. After resolution the team meets to discuss the incident and propose changes going forward to reduce the category of issue. Incident reports are not provided externally, except where customer privacy or data integrity could have been affected. Users can report incidents to customer support.

Secure development

• Approach to secure software development best practice: Supplier-defined process

Public sector networks

• Connection to public sector networks: No

Social Value

• Social Value:

  Social Value

  • Fighting climate change
  • Covid-19 recovery
  • Tackling economic inequality
  • Equal opportunity
  • Wellbeing

  Fighting climate change

  Microlink has a published Carbon Reduction Plan, available on our website, and updated annually. We are committed to achieving Net Zero by 2050 and our SBTi verified Near-Term target of a 42% reduction by 2030. Approximately 80% of our employees work remote which reduces our emissions from commuting. It has also allowed us to “shut down” the upper floor of Microlink House, greatly reducing our Scope 1 and 2 Emissions from gas and electric usage. We are working with our supply chain to reduce downstream emissions through providing information and tools to help our supply chain calculate and reduce emissions. As most of our suppliers are SMEs, they are just beginning their carbon reduction journey, but Microlink are making a concerted effort to help them on their “path to green”. We encourage our supply chain to make their products and packaging as sustainable as possible, through recycling or reusing of products. To monitor downstream emissions, we audit our suppliers and sub-contractors annually on a variety of environmental and emissions-related factors. The Microlink warehouse have a cardboard shredder allowing them to recycle cardboard waste into recyclable packaging for our products. Through our Clear Desk Policy, we have drastically reduced our paper waste across the company. As of 2023, none of the waste produced by Microlink was sent to landfill; waste that was not recycled was turned into energy through the Veolia “Waste to Energy” Scheme. We have partnered with the DPD EV delivery fleet which has helped us reduce our downstream transportation and distribution emissions and reduce the amount of air pollution created. As of 2023, all DPD deliveries for Microlink were completed through their EV fleet. We are researching the installation of gas pumps and a solar panel array and battery to further reduce our Scope 1 and 2 emissions.

  Covid-19 recovery

  Microlink’s products and services have enabled a quarter of a million people to alleviate their health conditions and disabilities, across both the education and employment sectors. This has never been more relevant than now in the post-COVID environment. Covid showed how it was possible with modern technology to provide disability support services remotely either in the office or at home. This has enabled Microlink to grow its business in the UK and expand its services abroad with benefit to the UK economy. In addition our work in education and accessible recruitment is enabling more disabled students to transition into work successfully.

  Tackling economic inequality

  Microlink are an equal opportunities employer with a strict policy applied to employees; our processes are conducted on merit and suitability. Recruitment procedures and employment conditions are aligned to the Good Work Plan and our Equality and Diversity policy and regularly reviewed to ensure they remain non-discriminatory. Over 45% of Microlink’s current workforce are self-declared as being disabled. These staff members are at the forefront of our management team, our client-facing activities and our market leading research and development team. Microlink is a Disability Confident employer and look to assist other businesses to become Disability Confident. We have won a range of awards related to this, including the National Diversity Award 2015 and have been recognised as a Disability Champion by the Business Disability Forum. As a business we value education greatly –three members of our Senior Management Team act as school governors in their local area. We strongly believe that the delivery of quality services is reliant on providing workplace opportunities to graduates to train into the levels of experience that our UK business requires. Therefore, it is important to us to give back and help younger people gain valuable experience. within a technical and consultative environment such as ours. We are always open to accommodating graduates and provide work experience to local students. We work with Schools and Colleges to train teachers and employers with the skills necessary to encourage young people with disabilities to achieve their full potential at work and in life. We routinely maintain an innovation and research programme targeted at ensuring that the company’s knowledge and expertise is completely up to date and researching technology-based methods for enhancing our service. This entire programme encompasses evaluation, testing, trial and marketing of new innovative assistive technologies as they become market-ready.

  Equal opportunity

  Our vision is to create an inclusive society which embraces diversity and releases the potential to advance humanity. We are an equal opportunities employer. We welcome applications from all groups of society. We regularly review remuneration surveys to ensure that pay is fair and relevant to location. We adhere to policies such as Employment Standards, Ethics, Equality & Diversity, Recruitment & Retention, Reasonable Adjustment and the Equality Act 2010. Candidate CV’s received for any role are anonymised. The recruiter will review the qualifications and experience required to fulfil a role to remove unconscious bias. When inviting a candidate for interview, we are clear about its format, time, length, how many people will be on the panel and their roles. We typically do not publish the interview questions in advance but will forward to candidates if requested. We use language that can be understood by all. We ask if we can make an adjustment for the interview itself and to share information about a disability, health condition or communication difference e.g additional time to respond to questions, BSL support or closed captioning (subtitles) if there is a hearing challenge for example. DSE for all new employees and Access to Work applications are made within the first six weeks of employment. We supply the right tools to enable the individual to carry out their duties. Career progression is available via on the job learning or gaining further qualifications. Mentoring and coaching is available. We accept students for work experience and have and will use apprenticeship initiatives. We give our employees every opportunity to succeed as they are the future of the company. We value every contribution that our employees make. Employees succeed due to their individual performance efforts. Individuals undergo a monthly 1-1 to discuss their performance and identify any skill gaps.

  Wellbeing

  The pandemic taught us everyone that loneliness and social isolation has a devastating impact on our health and wellbeing. Microlink is The employer is an extension of an employee’s family, not just an employer. We listen and help in whatever way we you can. We strive for contentment and have a transparent relationship with employees. We are signed up to Mindful Employer and implement the 6 standards in the Mental Health at Work commitment including promoting an open culture around mental health, a systematic programme of activity and providing mental health tools. We use scientifically designed impact studies to build employee engagement and foster wellbeing in Microlink. We encourage open discussions about what the problems may be via 1-1’s with line managers, HR and Mental Health Champions. We embrace wellbeing initiatives and we regularly train our line managers in how to begin conversations. For employees who need specialist 1-1 counselling, we signpost them to the Company Counsellor for confidential help and guidance. We have a clear communication practice in place to advise staff. we do this weekly and our messages are recorded akin to daily news bulletins on the TV which are then subsequently circulated in an accessible video. We take part in group activities. Bake off days and other events, for example. We volunteer to help local communities such as local colleges and schools by giving our time to undertake mock interviews or opening up our workplace for specific work experience. We are open to volunteering ventures to make the lives better for our local communities and have, in the past painted and gardened. We have raised money and donated to local charities. We practice what we preach and provide mental health support and guidance to clients through our services.

Pricing

• Price: £100 a unit an hour
• Discount for educational organisations: No
• Free trial available: No

Service documents

• Pricing document

  PDF

• Service definition document

  PDF

• Terms and conditions

  PDF

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 sam@microlinkpc.com. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.