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Remediation Delayed

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From: Peter Shikli
Date: Jun 30, 2019 11:09AM

This question is a mix of technical and legal related to accessibility.

We have more than one government agency client that has web pages and
PDF documents that can be properly remediated to WCAG 2.0 level AA, but
with links or attachments that are many, poor-quality image scans of
documents whose source has long since disappeared.  Because our holding
company builds backend website applications, we could offer these
agencies the following solution:

1) The main web page or PDF goes online accessible.

2) The web page links or PDF attachments are replaced by a short,
accessible form to request either the current, inaccessible images or
their remediated versions.
    a) In the first case, the inaccessible images are displayed
immediately.
    b) In the second case, the remediation request is dropped into a
work order between the agency and my company.

3) In the case of remediation (2.b above), the images are OCR'd,
remediated, and posted online to replace the above request form. And the
requester is advised with an email containing a link to the subject web
page or PDF that is then completely accessible.

Our analysts have broken into two camps.  The one I call "Purists" say
providing option 2.a above violates WCAG because it leads to
inaccessible content.  The other "Pragmatic" camp takes the position
that WCAG allows for inaccessible content as long as an identical
accessible version is available, in this case, a few days after the
request.  The "Pragmatists" also raise considerations of the client's
budget and capacity, but I would like to ask the community to weigh in
without those factors.

Does the above approach comply to the spirit and words of WCAG and the W3C?

Cheers,
Peter Shikli
Access2online