-
Notifications
You must be signed in to change notification settings - Fork 0
Home
This is one of the final bills President Obama put into motion on January 18, 2017. The U.S. Access Board published a final rule updating accessibility requirements Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act (for Federal ICT) and Section 255 of the Communications Act (for Telecommunications Equipment). It is also relevant because the Department of Justice has set a precedent that under the Americans with a Disability Act (ADA) that websites need to be WCAG 2.0 AA.
All USA federal departments, agencies and institutions that receive federal funding are required to be Section 508 Compliant (government agencies, government contractors, federal-funded nonprofits, public higher education institutions, public K-12 schools). Many states have also passed legislation requiring electronic and information technology accessibility.
WCAG 2.0 is platform agnostic and is continually being refreshed to address new technologies. It is a function-based approach that is future-compatible.
- WCAG 2.0 AA requirements for websites, as well as to non-web electronic documents & software;
- specifying the types of non-public facing electronic content that must comply (emergency notifications, decisions adjudicating administrative claims, program or policy announcements, notices of benefits, program eligibility, employment opportunities or personnel actions, formal acknowledgements or receipts, questionnaires or surveys, templates or forms, educational or training materials, and web-based intranets);
- requiring that operating systems provide certain accessibility features;
- clarifying that software and operating systems must inter-operate with assistive technology (such as screen magnification software and refresh-able braille displays);
- addressing access for people with cognitive, language, and learning disabilities; and
- harmonizing the requirements with international W3C standards & with European Commission ICT Standards (EN 301 549).
Rehabilitation Act of 1973 includes other sections on accessibility that are worth noting: Sections 501 and 505: prohibits federal employers from discriminating against qualified individuals with disabilities. Section 503: prohibits employment discrimination based on disability by federal contractors or subcontractors. Section 504: prohibits federal agencies, programs, or activities from discriminating and requires reasonable accommodation for qualified individuals with disabilities.
TITLE I of the ADA covers employment and prohibits job discrimination against individuals with disabilities who, with or without a reasonable accommodation, can perform a job's essential functions. TITLE II extends the same ban against discrimination to state and local governments and includes provisions requiring agencies to make public transportation and other public services accessible to individuals with disabilities. TITLE III bars discrimination in a wide range of public accommodations, including hotels, restaurants, museums, schools, and sports arenas, and requires that these facilities be accessible to people with disabilities.
Individuals with disabilities may file a complaint with an agency or start a lawsuit for noncompliance. It is based on individual action against individual agencies rather than any type of coordinated oversight & enforcement.
An increasing number of businesses are getting sued under the ADA. A corporation can be sued more than once for not meeting WCAG 2.0 AA compliance.
405.1 General. The same degree of privacy of input and output shall be provided to all individuals.
When speech output required by 402.2 is enabled, the screen shall not blank automatically.