Government information professionals working towards the Implementing e-Government (IEG) standards need to be addressing accessibility, experts say. Users with eyesight, hearing or learning difficulties must be able to easily access online government information by April 2006 as part of IEG compliance.
Local authority services such as schools admissions, vote registration, planning applications, government information, and council tax administration have to be online by December 31, 2005. By April 2006 government bodies will have to achieve a second IEG deadline of ensuring that all their website information complies with the e-government metadata standard and be accessible to the AA standard set by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), an international organisation for internet standards.
The Disability Rights Commission (DRC), which represents disabled members of the community, found in a survey of commercial and government web services that many sites were not complying with equal access laws and said legal action "was only a matter of time". Chairman of the DRC Bert Massie said eight in 10 sites were almost impossible for disabled users, "It means a technological lock out".
Discussing the Disability Discrimination Act on BBC Radio 4 this morning Massie said, "Disabled people have been enormously patient, waiting for business to get their services in order."
Authorities are achieving IEG accessibility compliance though; Steve Mountain special project engineer for Havant Borough Council has developed a website with access keys for users that cannot use a mouse and provided links to screen magnification downloads.
Nigel Jackson CEO at web content management provider Immediacy said information professionals need to be aware of keeping their sites compliant once they have achieved the IEG deadlines, "the question is can you guarantee it?"
