Disability rights and Australian websites confusion
I have been working in the web design industry for a number of years now and I am still unsure of exact requirements for disability rights and Australian websites. With today being blogging against disablism day I thought I should find out.
America has Section 508. But does Australia have anything requiring electronic technology developed in Australia to be accessible?
One thing for sure is that all websites need to be navigated and read by everyone, regardless of location, experience, or the type of computer technology used. This is outlined in the Australian Human rights & equal opportunity commission’s ‘World Wide Web Access: Disability Discrimination Act Advisory Notes‘. But what does this mean for Australian web developers? Do we have to comply with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines priority 1, 2 or 3? And if so, who is enforcing these laws?
There has been one legal case concerning Web accessibility known as Maguire vs. SOCOG, where SOCOG was sued because its website was seen to be inaccessible. This shows us that inaccessible websites can and are seen as illegal!
Therefore, while not being specifically law, it looks like it is up to the web developer, company or client to decided on a moral or commercial grounds weather the website they are building should be done with accessibility in mind.
I don’t think this is the right situation. Maybe there should be an Australian law enforcing all website to be built in an accessible manner? But more importantly, I believe there should be more resources and eduction on building usable and accessible websites that can be used by anyone with any technology and disability.
Technorati Tags: accessibility, web, Australia, disability rights, Blogging Against Disablism Day
May 2nd, 2007 at 1:12 am
A group of us have been trying to keep an eye on legislation worldwide and you’re right, it can be very confusing. We have a list that we attempt to keep up to date here.
The part that is relevant to you is Disability Discrimination Advisory Notes Version 3.2, 2002 at point 2.2::
As to your question, it’s similar in the UK. There IS a law, it’s the Disability Discrimination Act and it should be followed by all but, it’s not enforced. The RNIB in the UK have approached large companies who have backed down and done the needed work so nothing has gone to court. Nobody has a clue what will happen if it does.
There’s the Target DIY case which is currently at appeal in the US and there’s the Latif vs. PMI case where a UK citizen has successfully sued a US company under the UK DDA. This is also at appeal but will be interesting if she wins.
Thing is, it’s not difficult to provide basic levels of accessibility on most sites. Once you’ve done one the functionality can be carried over to the next one. Apart from covering your backside against the day someone does start to enforce it, it kind of feels like it’s the right thing to do anyway.
May 2nd, 2007 at 4:18 am
I think this is covered in existing disability discrimination law in Australia, the same law that applied in the SOCOG case you cite. The advantage with not prescribing guidelines is that the law can more easily adapt to new technologies. It would also be difficult to enforce anything more than Priority 1 by law, but that would send the signal to many sites that their accessibility journey was over at that point. Depending on their content, design and audience, the bigger accessibility barriers might be defined by lower priority checkpoints. By making the law respond to individual complaints, it takes on a flexibility that means each site and complaint can be assessed on its own merits and in light of what might or might not be reasonable adjustments for the site owner to make. That said, it is unfortunate that there is so little case law worldwide to help site owners to understand what the issues are, what the legal risks are and what the remedies could be.
There’s a review of the SOCOG case here:
http://www.contenu.nu/socog.html
May 6th, 2007 at 6:41 pm
@Jaybee - Thanks for providing that information, I will definitely keep an eye on your ‘Do you need to comply?’ link.
@Sean - Thank you for your comment. That really clears everything up for me now. The fact that there is actually a law and it is setup to be flexible to meet the needs of each complaint makes perfect sense now. However, I still believe there should be some minimum set of standards set in place for all Australian websites.