Web Accessibility and the Law - UK
Another country that has taken web accessibility and regulations thereof very seriously is UK. The primary regulation there, the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) dates back to 1995. The Part III of this act that is applicable to websites and requires them to be accessible came into effect on 1st October 1999. In the same year the Disability Rights Commission Act came into effect to set up the Disability Rights Commission (DRC), which was responsible for “elimination of discrimination against disabled persons” besides other tasks. This commission actively promoted the Part III of the DDA 1995.
In 2002, the Disability Discrimination Code of Practice (Goods, Facilities, Services and Premises) came into existence. This Code of Practice (The Code) offers practical guidance on how to prevent discrimination against disabled people in accessing services and spells out the duties on those providing such services to the public under Part III of the DDA. It aims to expedite the elimination of discrimination against disabled people and to encourage best practices. This Code is not a statement of law and hence does not impose legal obligations. However in case of litigation or legal proceedings, the Code can be used as evidence under the DDA. According to the Code, a service provider must make ‘reasonable adjustments’ for the disabled people to be able to use the said services.
In 2005, the DDA, 1995 was amended to include certain employers and service providers previously exempt from the Act (primarily the small employers) to comply with the Act and hence make their websites accessible. From 1999 until 2006, the DRC worked extensively to create awareness of the DDA as well as the Code. In 2004 it released an investigation report of over 1000 websites. One of the key findings of that report was that @ 80% of the websites investigated were inaccessible to people with disabilities. As a consequence a strict warning was issued to the erring organizations about a possible legal action under the DDA as well as enforcement of compensatory benefits to the challenged users.In the year 2006, an overarching Act called the Equality Act, 2006 was passed which meant to establish the Commission for Equality and Human Rights; to dissolve the Equal Opportunities Commission, the Commission for Racial Equality and the Disability Rights Commission. Amongst other duties of this commission, the ones that have relevance for web accessibility are “each individual has an equal opportunity to participate in society” and “work towards the elimination of unlawful discrimination”. Since passing of this act and the formation of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, it has been spearheading the efforts for bringing equality and eliminating discrimination against people with disbabilities.
The Royal National Institute for the Blind (RNIB) is another institution that has been promoting the DDA and now the Equality Act. It has worked on investigating several possible violations of the DDA and the Code of Practice. One such instance has been its investigation of the Ryanair’s online ticketing services.
Another act that has relevance here, is the Special Educational Needs and Disability Act, 2001 (SENDA), which was an amendment to the DDA, 1995 to include education as one of the services. This enabled that the students in the pre-and post-16 education, were not discriminated against in training and any other services provided wholly or mainly to students. This includes higher education as well as vocational training.
In the next post I will cover the regulations and guidelines from EU.
Comments
It was with interest that I read about the legal aspect w.r.t. web accessibility in countries like US, UK etc. I wonder if we have a similar law in India? I recently read about the UNCRPD ratification by India and the inclusion of disability in the XI five year plan. However, there seems to be no legal recourse available in India as far as web accessibility is concerned. This looks like a huge gap in the Indian websphere. Do let me know your thoughts on the same. Thanks.
Posted by: Vijay Krishnamani | November 27, 2008 02:39 PM
Vijay, thanks for your interest in the post and also for your question.
Let me start with a short answer – To the best of my knowledge, we do not yet have a law that governs web accessibility in India. However, a working group has been set up, in Jan 2007, under the Department of Information Technology, Ministry of Communication and Information Technology which is chartered with formulating the “Policy and Procedures for Implementation of Web Accessibility Standards”.
Your question actually helped me write a full post on the laws in India related with persons with disabilities. I look forward to your comments on the same as well.
Posted by: Dr. Ajay Kolhatkar | November 28, 2008 12:42 AM