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Re: Interpretation of UK accessibility law?

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From: Steve Green
Date: Feb 4, 2020 11:58AM

Sorry this is a bit long, but it is a topic we wrestle with on a daily basis and it's not simple.

The Equality Act (and the Disability Discrimination Act before it) does not specify any technical accessibility requirements. It merely says that you must take reasonable measures to ensure that you do not discriminate against people on grounds of various "protected characteristics", one of which is disability.

Only a court of law can determine if a website is compliant, and that judgement only applies to the circumstances of that specific case. Thus a website can be compliant in respect of one person and non-compliant in respect of another. No one else (not even us!) can do any kind of testing and definitively say whether a website is compliant or not. Our view is that achieving WCAG 2.1 AA compliance and doing user testing with disabled participants should be sufficient in most cases, but it might not be.

This might seem entirely unsatisfactory, but unlike in the US, a person cannot just slap you with a law suit - they must give you the opportunity to address the accessibility barriers or provide the information or services by other means. This is why there have been very few cases in the UK to date.

The Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018 is entirely different. This mandates WCAG 2.1 AA compliance, but there are exemptions for certain types of content such as maps, and legacy multimedia, PDFs and office documents - see http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2018/852/regulation/3/made.

Furthermore, the date by which a website must be compliant varies - see http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2018/852/regulation/4/made.

There is also a "disproportionate burden" clause that means you may never have to fix some non-compliances. See http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2018/852/regulation/6/made.

The Regulations only apply to public sector bodies, and they contain a definition of what this means. In my opinion, a university is not likely to come under the scope of these regulations according to those definitions - see http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2018/852/regulation/2/made.

The consequence of all this, is that:
1. The exemptions mean that some non-compliances never need to be fixed.
2. The "disproportionate burden" clause means that some non-compliances may never need to be fixed. However, this is not a "get out of jail free card", and you must justify your claims in the accessibility statement.
3. The time limits means that some fixes can be delayed, although some of these dates have already passed and the furthest away is 23 September 2020 for websites (2021 for mobile apps).
4. if you are not a public sector body (according to the definition) you don't need to fix anything.

If you're not totally confused, I suggest you read the Regulations. They are quite short but they are extremely badly written (as is all EU legislation), so in no time at all you will understand much less than you do now.

Steve Green
Managing Director
Test Partners Ltd