Businesses need better web access for disabled

This week the Australian Government made a submission to the UN's draft Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities. The submission highlighted the need for disabled people to have the ability to access information, communication services and assistive technologies, including electronic banking and the mass media.

But, according to leading IT and ecommerce lawyer Matthew Hall, many Australian companies still need to address the issue of accessibility to their web sites: "To be able to actively participate in today's society everyone must be able to access key services and information electronically. The Commonwealth Disability Discrimination Act out lines that it is unlawful for a person who provides services to discriminate against other persons on the ground of the other person's disability."

"This right was reinforced back in 2002 when the Sydney Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (SOCOG) was successfully sued, and fined, over a lack of disability access to its web site."

Mr. Hall said that despite the high profile of the SOCOG case, he suspected that web accessibility was still an issue that many Australian companies had not yet addressed: "Last year, a report by monitoring company Business2www found that 21 percent of the top UK companies have web sites that fail basic accessibility tests. My belief is that if we did the same study in Australia we would get similar results."

He added that the Australian Banker's Association released voluntary Industry Standards for its member in April 2002 to assist banks to develop or enhance their electronic banking services for older Australians and people with disabilities to meet the requirements of the Act.

All Association members' web sites were required to comply with the Standards by October last year. Mr. Hall: "Despite the voluntary standards for the financial services industry, this is an issue that needs to be at the forefront of the minds of all Australian companies. The fact that the United Nations and Australia government are seriously considering the draft Convention is an indication that this issue will continue to gain prominence. Is it only a matter of time before all Australian businesses will need to seriously address Internet and other electronic accessibility issues."

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