Major U.S. Study, "The Accessible Future," Attracts International Interest
By Judy Wilkinson ( jwilkins@panix.com)
On June 21, 2001, the US National Council on Disability (NCD) released a report entitled The Accessible Future: http://www.ncd.gov/newsroom/publications/accessiblefuture.html. The fourth in its series of reports reviewing the impact and implementation of major disability civil rights laws, The Accessible Future analyzes the current state of information technology access rights under various federal laws and makes detailed recommendations for achieving broad information access equality for people with disabilities in the United States.
By way of background, the executive summary states, "In the currency of daily life, what is more important yet more taken for granted than access to information? But for many people with disabilities, the information access and exchange that most of us take for granted is difficult or impossible... The explanation increasingly lies not in disability itself, but in the design of the technology that mediates our access to and use of all types of information."
Report's author interviewed
According to Steven Mendelsohn, the report's author, "Although the statutes analyzed in the report are specific to the United States, their character and enforcement have clear implications for laws and practices of other nations. In fact, throughout the report, wherever the term 'Americans" or "United States" is used, if we substitute the terms "people of the world" the applicability to all disabled people becomes apparent."
The statutes covered by the report include:
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The Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) which includes definitions of discrimination that recognize the harm done by denial of access to information and which includes requirements for effective communication with people who have disabilities;
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Section 255 of the Telecommunications Act which requires that equipment and services used in making and receiving telephone calls be accessible to and usable by individuals with disabilities, either directly or through use of assistive technology peripherals or specialized software; and
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Section 508 of the Federal Rehabilitation Act which obliges the federal government to purchase accessible "electronic and information technology (E&IT) for use by its own employees or by members of the public using federally provided technology to obtain information from the government.
The report continues: "No one would dispute that people with disabilities have the same right and need for information everyone else has. Nevertheless for many of these citizens, the information gap (both a cause and a consequence of various forms of economic and social disadvantage) is not narrowing. Paradoxically, at the very time when many people comfortably assume that technology is steadily bringing people with disabilities more opportunities for access than they have ever known before, this same technology (coupled with the attitudes and expectations of those who use it) may in many cases be reinforcing patterns of exclusion and isolation."
Clarifying the disparities of the digital divide
"Recent discussion of the 'digital divide' problem has demonstrated the existence and consequences of major disparities in our society between information haves and have-nots. The harm attributable to the information gap is severe, both for those denied opportunity and participation as a result of it and for society as a whole. While Americans with disabilities can all too often be counted on the have-not side of the information and information access equation, the reasons and remedies for this exclusion are not so well or widely understood."
"Leaving aside broader questions of poverty, education, health care or even discrimination, the problem is that much information the rest of our society takes for granted is not provided or disseminated in ways accessible or usable by people with sensory, physical and cognitive disabilities. Imagine trying to conduct your life in a world where most key communications were made only in an unknown foreign language. Imagine life in a world where a person may not even know the information exists."
. . . "Even as they create new opportunities for some, information technology advances erect access barriers to others. Where such barriers could be avoided, their needless occurrence is all the more tragic and wasteful."
"Among the kinds of technology that have irrevocably changed life for all of us, modern information technology, the technology of the computer era, has dramatically empowered many people. But any assumption that all or most information technology is routinely available to or usable by people with disabilities would be a grave mistake. Incorporation of what we call accessibility into America's information technology infrastructure is not and has not been automatic or certain. When any new mainstream technology creates opportunities for some but excludes others because of design features that do not take users with disabilities into account, part of its impact is to engender frustration, create divisions, and reduce the opportunity for independence available to significant subgroups of our fellow citizens."
Electronic & Information Technology
The report continues by introducing one of its key concepts: Electronic And Information Technology: E&IT.
"Although a relatively new and perhaps unfamiliar term to some, we believe that E&IT will become the predominant term used in discussions of information technology access rights. The range of devices falling within the definition of E&IT is inclusive, encompassing all equipment, software and websites used for creation, storage, transmission or manipulation of information and data. Our major focus here will be on computers . . . and other internet websites and resources."
The author continues, "The research was conducted to answer three basic questions:
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Is access to E&IT by Americans with disabilities sufficiently fundamental to rise to the level of a civil right?
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Which laws establish civil rights protections around e&it access and how are those laws being applied and enforced?
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What changes in law or practice would be most effective in fulfilling the goals of E&IT access equality for all Americans?"
Author Cites International Progress
Author Steven Mendelsohn addes, "While many of the issues raised in the report can best be understood in the cultural context of the US., the underlying concepts are far more universal and are mirrored in parallel efforts in other countries. For example, one of the key requirements of Section 508 is that federally-operated web sites must be accessible, meaning designed according to standards ensuring that persons with disabilities will be able to use them and gain access to the information they contain and the activities they support. Such efforts at making the internet accessible are already underway in Canada and the European Union." (See also Robyn Hunt's article "Internet Access on the New Zealand Agenda" in the May-June issue of Disability World which discusses New Zealand's efforts along these lines.)
"In addition, much of the technology used in the world today is designed and manufactured in countries other than where it is used; therefore national and regional accessibility requirements are likely to play an increasingly important role in design practices around the globe and in determining what kinds of communications technology will be most readily available to developing nations."
The report underscores the fundamental principle that access to information is a civil or human right closely intertwined with other rights such as education and work.
It explains that under modern conditions technology is increasingly the tool by which information is disseminated and gathered, sent and received. As such the report sets forth values and goals that could become key to the social planning and technology infrastructure building efforts of both developed and developing nations.
Conclusion
The executive summary concludes with the following paragraph:
"We live in what is frequently called the 'information society'. In this successor era to the Industrial Age, information is more and more the principal commodity of commerce. Access to E&IT is more and more the arbiter of success and the source of opportunity in education and employment. Under these circumstances, it should not be surprising that access to information and to the technology generating, transmitting, and storing it would become a civil rights issue for many people with disabilities and for our society. As the importance of electronic and information technology access grows in the way we conduct our lives, in the choices we make, and in the decisions others make about us, this importance can only grow. We must ensure that all Americans can participate in the information society of the 21st Century. This report from NCD provides a coherent set of recommendations, strategies and activities that, if implemented, will guarantee a better quality of life for all Americans who use E&IT."
The first step in applying the principles of this report to other countries in the world has already been taken. Recently, Fundacion Once of Spain has requested and been granted NCD's permission to translate the report into Spanish, undertaking to make that translation available on the web and in hardcopy formats. Information will eventually be available on their web site http://www.fundaciononce.es. This request by Fundacion Once marks an important step toward the development of a vital multilingual international dialog concerning the values and opportunities surrounding information technology use an development in the years to come.
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