EME and Accessibility

Dear WAI Interest Group Participants,

During an Advisory Committee review of the Encrypted Media Extensions 
<https://www.w3.org/TR/encrypted-media/> (aka EME) specification, 
concerns were raised regarding potential accessibility for people with 
disabilities. This included the possibility that there might be barriers 
to accessing accessibility information such as captions, or that there 
might be barriers to researching innovative approaches to 
accessibility-related modifications of the video stream.

We have not found any such barriers in our investigation. The document 
linked below describes the general process used to review potential 
accessibility concerns in W3C specifications during development, 
summarizes the results of accessibility testing of the EME 
specification, and notes the disposition of ideas for future research on 
accessible video regardless of encryption.

     EME and Accessibility
     https://edit.w3.org/2017/03/eme-accessibility.html

If you have any remaining questions with specific regard to 
accessibility aspects of EME after reading this -- or ideas about 
innovations in online media accessibility in general, since research and 
development of such innovations is independent from encryption -- please 
raise here as needed.

Regards,

- Judy

-- 

Judy Brewer
Director, Web Accessibility Initiative
at the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
32 Vassar St. Room 385, MIT/CSAIL
Cambridge MA 02139 USA
www.w3.org/WAI/