Public procurement may force accessible IT, says European Commission

This approach to driving accessibility throughout the EU's 25 Member States was backed by 90% of the 489 respondents to a Commission consultation on the need for "eAccessiblity" measures.Respondents also said that EU institutions should take the lead in proposing these measures (88%), that ICT goods and services need to be made more fully interoperable (74%), and that technical requirements should be harmonised within and beyond the EU for this purpose (84%).But it is less clear how these requirements should be enforced. The UK places obligations on service providers to embrace accessibility through its Disability Discrimination Act; but this Act is not derived from any EU Directive, and despite being 10 years old, it is still far wider in scope than any accessibility laws passed to date by any of its neighbours.Although there was clear support among respondents for some form of product certification or a "labelling" scheme (72%), respondents were fairly evenly divided on whether this scheme should be voluntary, mandatory, and/or rely on self-certification with checks.Public agencies, consumer groups and individuals with a disability responded overwhelmingly in favour of mandatory certification schemes; while most manufacturers and providers and sellers of eAccessibility products and services favoured voluntary schemes. Remaining groups stand somewhere in between, according to the report.Perhaps surprisingly, the Commission concluded from the survey that a voluntary self-certification scheme should be the way forward, at least in the short term – yet this route was favoured by only 16.1% of respondents. A mandatory scheme was favoured by 51.5% of respondents.Respondents included public agencies, ICT goods and service suppliers, universities, business associations and user groups. Over half of them (54%) described themselves as eAccessibility experts or professionals.The survey was short, and did not ask whether accessibility should be written into EU law. In fact, the choice of questions prompted a few observers to accuse the Commission of framing its consultation to elicit the answers that it wanted to hear.However, it did ask whether respondents felt the suggested instruments – on public procurement and certification of products and services – were sufficient. And the 34% who wanted additional instruments (against 35% who did not) were invited to make suggestions.Among these suggestions, a recurring theme was the enforcement of current legislation that exists in some Member States, where there are "general obligations" – but where enforcement appears to be "in practice of nobody's concern." These Member States were not identified.Others called for a European law based on the US laws known as Section 508 (an amendment to its Workplace Rehabilitation Act) and the Americans with Disabilities Act, albeit UK law goes further than these laws in some respects. In the US, these laws exist as tools to promote and also enforce accessibility – albeit the legal regime for ICT accessibility in the US is far from clear outside the domain of public procurement.Welcoming yesterday's report, European Information and Media Commissioner Viviane Reding said, "This was our first on-line public consultation on eAccessibility, and the response has far exceeded our expectations, across all target groups." She added that the Commission's efforts should bring the benefits of ICT "to the 90 million EU citizens who are currently unable to reap them in full."The Commission's eAccessibility policy focuses on removing barriers stemming from inappropriate design of ICT products and services, particularly for people with disabilities and the elderly.According to the Commission, this policy relies on several instruments, so far still seldom used in Europe, that fall within the existing legal framework (including public procurement, product certification, and specific legislative provisions), to achieve voluntary harmonisation of Member States' rules whilst simultaneously encouraging industry initiatives.These instruments are supplemented by measures to foster the development of technical standards enhancing accessibility, teach eSkills, widen "design-for-all" practices, enhance web accessibility implementation, encourage Member States to compare and share good practice, and stimulate accessibility research and technological development in the ICT field.Other measures – including possible further legislation at EU level – may be considered two years from now, according to the Commission. This will depend on progress and the impact of the non-mandatory measures in improving accessibility in Europe.Jon Fell, a partner with Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind OUT-LAW.COM, said:"While a consultation on ICT accessibility is undoubtedly a good thing, I don't share the Commission's enthusiasm at the results. Fewer than 500 people responded. That hardly seems representative for a region with almost half a billion people. Only 70 responses came from the UK, where the law relating to web accessibility has been a hot topic for some time. A big part of the problem could be that the range of questions was far from comprehensive. Many people may have been deterred from completing the survey as soon as they saw the questions."The Commission says that proposals will be set out in a Communication scheduled for September 2005.