RE: Is the accessibility of a 3rd party that represent me still my concern?

Geri, others have provided good advice - that indeed if you receive federal funds, provide access to electronic health records, appear on the federal marketplace, etc. then you will likely be subject to regulations such as Section 504, 508 (including CMS or HHS flavors), ADA, WCAG Level A (EHR) or other regulations such as functional performance requirements that apply the categories that I listed.  Requiring vendors to provide compliant products and services is likely the path you will need to take to ensure you are in compliance.  Ultimately if the regulations apply to you - you are then responsible for compliance - contracting out something does not absolve you of the responsibility if vendors want to do business with you then they need to conform to your procurement requirements.   This is not legal advice - if you have any questions about your legal obligations you should seek council.

In case it comes up, there is a portion of the WCAG conformance requirements that address third party content on sites that you did not choose to put there - that is your site is hosted on a service and the service places third party ads on the site.  In those cases you can make a partial claim of conformance - but that does not appear to be the situation you are in.

Jonathan

Jonathan Avila
SSB BART Group

From: Druckman,Geri [mailto:GDruckman@mdanderson.org]
Sent: Monday, March 28, 2016 4:21 PM
To: wai-ig
Subject: Is the accessibility of a 3rd party that represent me still my concern?

Hi all,

Here's a dilema I have, and I seek your advice hoping any of you have had to deal with a similar situation before.
The institution I work for is in negotiations over a contract with a vendor that will supply us with a web based application solution.  This will NOT be hosted on our servers in any way, it is 100% on the vendors side, and our clients will receive an email with a link, directing them to the vendors site, where they will need to interact with said application.

At the moment to vendor claims not to be section 508 / WCAG compliant and is seeking an exemption in the contract.

My dilemma is, although we have nothing to do with the development or hosting of said application, we are still sending our clients over to that site to interact with it.  Is it still within my institutions responsibility to make sure that this vendor is accessible, or is this all on them?

Any information is greatly appreciated.

Geri Druckman

(cross post with WebAIM)
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