Re: APA position statement to the W3C Workshop on Permissions

+1, thanks, Lionel. This is looking pretty complete to me. A few minor
tweaks, and I think we have a statement we can deliver.

Colleagues, we still have time to expand on this developing statement,
so please provide additional input.

Janina

Lionel Wolberger writes:
> Please find a proposal draft.
> 
> Title: APA position statement to the W3C Workshop on Permissions
> 
> From: The chairs and members of the Accessibility Platform Architectures
> Working Group (APA). In our cross-W3C scope, we work to ensure that all W3C
> published specifications provide support for accessibility to people with
> disabilities (PwD). Among our members are PwDs including people who are
> blind, vision impaired, deaf, hearing impaired, and cognitive and learning
> disabilities. (https://www.w3.org/WAI/APA/)
> 
> User permissions, to us, embraces many digital activities that concern us
> deeply, such as the usability of authorization (AuthZ) and authentication
> (AuthN) interfaces and the need for accomodations such as assistive
> technology. PwDs have always strongly objected to automated disclosure of
> their disability status on the web. This information is deemed highly
> personal and irrelevant in most online situations. Furthermore, having
> experienced various forms of discrimination in the physical world, PwDs
> yearn for an equal opportunity in the virtual world of the web.
> 
> We offer two examples:
> 
> CAPTCHA: While many treat CAPTCHA as an irritating speed bump on the
> internet highway,  CAPTCHA can literally prevent a PwD from accessing a
> resource. For example, asking users who are blind, visually impaired or
> dyslexic to identify textual characters in a distorted graphic is asking
> them to perform a task they are intrinsically least able to accomplish.
> Similarly, asking users who are deaf, hard of hearing, or living with
> auditory processing disorder to identify and transcribe in writing the
> content of an audio CAPTCHA is asking them to perform a task they’re
> intrinsically least likely to accomplish. (see <https://www.w3.org
> /TR/turingtest/>). We see a way out in relatively new Webauthn and FIDO
> authN schemes.
> 
> User Preferences: For many, user preferences such as dark mode are helpful
> features that make consuming internet content more comfortable. They don't
> mind revealing these preferences, as preferring "dark mode" doesn't say
> anything about the person requesting the enhancement. For PwDs, user
> preferences are not nice-to-have; they are essential. That said, they are
> too revealing. Yet disclosing disability-related accommodation needs can
> serve as a powerful vector to getting such accomodation support. Consider
> that a person who is blind, using a screen reader, does not need those
> light or dark mode, and a deaf person does not need a volume control; yet
> neither of these people may wish to share the fact that they are disabled.
> We see a way out in relatively new privacy-preserving verifiable
> credentials.
> 
> The two examples above are brought to highlight the contradiction at the
> heart of many PwD's digital experience. On the one hand, PwDs require
> accommodations to access the experience, and would love for these
> accommodations to accompany them to every app, web page and voice
> assistant. On the other hand, PwDs do not want accommodations or their use
> of assistive technology to reveal their disability, or to define them.
> 
> APA is excited to find in the growing maturity of recent novel APIs and
> innovations such as Verifiable Credentials, Digital Identifiers and
> Webauthn the potential to find solutions to these challenges. We see the
> following as offering very real improvements to the lives of PwD:
> -- The ability to prove we are human, without being forced into tasks we
> are least able to accomplish (see <https://www.w3.org/TR/turingtest/>)
> -- The ability to login to a federated environment without a password, and
> perform multi-factor authentication with sufficient time to complete the
> task
> -- The ability to selectively disclose needs for accomodation without
> revealing any personally identifiable or correlateable information
> -- The ability to digitally enable another person to perform certain
> actions on one's behalf
> -- The ability to get a Terms of Service that can be comprehended
> especially, but not exclusively, in the face of cognitive accessibility
> issues
> -- The ability for a user agent to mediate on-the-fly and render services
> in ways that are more appropriate for people with specific accessibility
> needs.
> -- The ability to progressively trust commercial, medical, and legal
> providers, and enable the sharing of more information as a relationship
> develops, or to cut off access should a relationship need to end. (see <
> https://www.w3.org/WAI/APA/task-forces/research-questions/wiki/Some_use_cases_for_verifiable_credentials
> >)
> 
> We look forward to bringing our experience in cross-W3C specification
> review to considering the side variety of Web APIs that will be discussed
> in this workshop. We are eager to engage with the gathered experts from
> every discipline and ensure that all these diverse professionals are
> hearing the voices of PwDs.
> 
> 
> 
> - Lionel
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> 
> Lionel Wolberger
> COO, UserWay Inc.
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-- 

Janina Sajka (she/her/hers)
Accessibility Consultant https://linkedin.com/in/jsajka

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
Co-Chair, Accessible Platform Architectures http://www.w3.org/wai/apa

Linux Foundation Fellow
https://www.linuxfoundation.org/board-of-directors-2/

Received on Thursday, 17 November 2022 04:14:13 UTC