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Re: WCAG and various Laws

for

From: Christophe Strobbe
Date: Apr 1, 2010 2:06PM

Hi Geof,

At 19:34 30/03/2010, Geof Collis wrote:
>Hi Christophe and All
>
>Followed that link and I've pasted below
>Countries that have some mention of Guidelines,
>not sure how current some of them are though.

If you are interested in disability legislation
in general, there is another resource that I
discovered just today: the section "law and
policy" on the website of the Academic Network of
European Accessibility Experts (ANED):
<http://www.disability-europe.net/en/themes/Law and policy>.




>Austria
>
>In conformity with the e-Europe Initiative,
>Austria has committed itself to adjusting all
>public web services according to the WAI level A.
>
>http://www.eaccessibility-progress.eu/country-profiles/austria/websites/

This is probably already out of date.
See
<http://www.austria.gv.at/site/5744/default.aspx>;.
However, this page does not clearly state to
which standard Austrian e-government websites should conform now.



>Belgium
>
>AnySurfer (formerly BlindSurfer) is a collective
>organization of Belgian�s largest organizations
>for the blind and visually impaired. AnySurfer is mainly
>known for granting quality labels (guidelines are
>based on WCAG1). Both the Flemish and the Walloon
>Government have formally accepted the revised AnySurfer
>guidelines (released in July 2006) as the only
>set of guidelines for testing public websites.
>
>http://www.eaccessibility-progress.eu/country-profiles/belgium/websites/

OK, but Belgium has no law on web accessibility.
Neither do the communities or the regions (and
God knows at which level one should campaign for
such legislation
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communities,_regions_and_language_areas_of_Belgium#Competences>).



>(...)
>
>France
>
>The Law for Equal Rights and Opportunities,
>Participation and Citizenship of People with
>Disabilities (Law n� 2005-102 of 11 February 2005), Article 47,
>makes accessibility of all public online services
>mandatory. Public digital communication services
>(public websites in particular, but also phone and TV
>services) must be accessible to people with
>disabilities according to international
>standards. The law does not specify further the services that are concerned,
>nor does it refer to specific standards.
>
>There is no direct legal or regulatory obligation
>for the accessibility of private websites.
>
>http://www.eaccessibility-progress.eu/country-profiles/france/websites/

Update: the decree from 14 May 2009
<http://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichTexte.do?cidTexte=LEGITEXT000020626623&;dateTexte=20091028>
requires that websites by puclic authorities
should conform within two years (starting from
the date of publication of the decree, if I understand this correctly).
This decree puts into practice article 47 from an
earlier law (from 11 February 2005):
<http://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichTexte.do?cidTexte=JORFTEXT000000809647&;dateTexte=>

RGAA provides guidelines for public
administrations: <http://references.modernisation.gouv.fr/rgaa-accessibilite>;.

Best regards,

Christophe


>(...)
>
>Taken from http://www.eaccessibility-progress.eu/country-profiles/


--
Christophe Strobbe
K.U.Leuven - Dept. of Electrical Engineering - SCD
Research Group on Document Architectures
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BELGIUM
tel: +32 16 32 85 51
http://www.docarch.be/
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