Re: DDA and Web Access

A few other notes on this, sorry its taken me so long to reply - start of
new academic year and all that.

Students in UK Higher Education remain excluded from the act for the time
being,
although we expect this exclusion to be removed soon.

The act covers 'Goods, facilities and services'  - I would have thought that
web sites would come under this.   Although there is no specific mention, I
would have thought that having an accessible web site would be seen as a
"reasonable adjustment" under the act.

We have an article about this: "Disability Legislation and Implications for
Technology in Higher Education" written by Sophie Corlett of the National
Bureau for students with disabilities on our site at:

http://www.disinhe.ac.uk/resources/bulletins/bulletin.asp?id=21

Cheers

- Paul
--
Paul Booth, Project Officer, DISinHE Office.
Disability Information Systems in Higher Education.
w:  http://www.disinhe.ac.uk/     t: 01382 345050      f: 01382 345509


----- Original Message -----
From: John Nissen <jn@tommy.demon.co.uk>
To: <icta@tommy.demon.co.uk>; <wai@tommy.demon.co.uk>
Cc: <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
Sent: Wednesday, October 06, 1999 1:54 PM
Subject: DDA and Web Access


> Hello,
>
> The good news is that one aspect of the UK Disability Discrimination Act
> Part III came into force on October 1st 1999, with a certain amount of
> publicity.
>
> The aspect now in force:
> From 1 October 1999 service providers have to make reasonable
> adjustments for disabled people, such as providing extra help or
> making changes to the way they provide their services.
>
> Today I received a booklet "An introduction for small and medium-sized
> businesses", which shows that the new regulations apply to smaller
> businesses as well as larger business, unlike Part II of the DDA which
> concerned employment provisions.
>
> The Act protects the rights of a wide range of people with sensory,
> mental or physical disabilities.
>
> It covers all service except education, means of transport, and
> services not available to the public, such as provided by private clubs
> to their members.
>
> It covers all kinds of service, including information.
>
> The bad news is that they seem not to have considered web access,
> though web sites offering a service to the public are clearly covered
> by the act.  Our Prime Minister has urged businesses to "embrace
> the Internet or die", but he has not considered the social divide this
> will cause unless businesses take web accessibility as an essential
> requirement (or make alternative accessible service provision
> such as CD-ROM with a built-in reader).  Online shopping is a prime
> example, where the service is extremely useful to elderly and
> disabled people, but liable to be inaccessible to them.
>
> Cheers from Chiswick,
>
> John
> --
> Access the word, access the world       Tel/fax +44 181 742 3170/8715
> John Nissen                             Email to jn@tommy.demon.co.uk
> Cloudworld Ltd., Chiswick, London, UK   http://www.tommy.demon.co.uk

Received on Sunday, 10 October 1999 11:47:21 UTC