Thanks. We'll see what they are willing to do, but technically we are not their employee, but our own little company that has a contract with them, and in certain other matters, they have not been very cooperative. Hopefully, since they do seem to value our work, they may work something out. At our level of computer knowledge, I can't imagine what that might be.

Many companies with very high standards and requirements of privacy and security use the commercial version of Gmail. My firm does - with tens of thousands of employees in the US and for which maintenance of absolute security is subject to both federal legal and regulatory oversight as well as professional standards of conduct.

I can't speak to how much or how little the free version of Gmail has of the same protections the commercial flavor does. As I said above, the use of password protected files and even VPN will likely deter all but the most focused state sponsored bad guys. If the material is such that a third party outside translator can be used, that speaks to some exaggeration of the real need for security. If your customer were the CIA or some similar organization, your work would be done on the customer's premises and you would have appropriate security clearances. In the absence of that and if they envision it okay for the material to pass over the internet, well, then that's something at the opposite end of the spectrum of how much concern there really is and needs to be.