Transcript
Hi, Bart. Welcome in the studio.
Hi, Kevin.
We're gonna talk about accessibility, but not in the analog way, not about how you make sure that wheelchairs can enter your event venue and things like that, but more about digital accessibility. Now, if we look at the world market in US, accessibility is already a thing for quite some time, where in privacy, it's the way around. But now also, Europe is following with an accessibility act. What does that mean?
Well, indeed, this is one of the few occasions where Europe lags behind on the US. Usually in everything that is consumer protection, we take the forefront in this case. America has had its legislation for quite a bit of time, and Europe has been working for quite a bit of time on an accessibility act as well.
There has been legislation for public services that have to ensure digital accessibility, and I'll explain what it is in a few seconds. And now it also, there is a second act, the European Accessibility act, that will also impose rules on private companies and organizations to ensure that digital services are accessible to people with all kinds of limitations in sight or in hearing.
So it basically means, very short summary that your website will have to be accessible to people that have limited vision, limited hearing, color blindness, difficulty to read, difficulty to watch, fast moving images, for instance.
Also, it goes quite far. So anyone with problems with flashing views and colors. So you have to make a lot of changes and adaptations to your website, but not only to your website, basically to all digital appliances and services that are available in the markets, all the way through to teller machines to take money out of the wall, or the ticketing machine where you buy a ticket for a train or a tram or a bus.
So all digital services will have to be accessible.
I hear a lot of companies say, why do I need to put so much effort for such a small group? But if you look at the numbers, it's one in and three people are in some way affected with some sort or level of disability to use computers in a general and numbers range from one in four to one in three.
Indeed, that's a lot of people that experience difficulties sometimes to access your website. And if you spend a lot of money on optimizing your website just to gain a few percentages in sales, then there is maybe a forgotten corner of the market that could be very interesting to companies.
Yeah, this talk is not about the technical stuff, what you need to do, but to give some examples, maybe we can touch them.
It's about if you, for example, put images on your website, put text in text, so people who can't see the images at least know what images are on the website. It's about subtitling. It's about making sure that you can use forms with just the keyboard and without the mouse. It's about making sure that accessibility tools just work nicely with your site. Like software that reads out a webpage out loud. It's about that kind of things.
It's speech to text, text to speech, of course. But it's also navigating the website without using a mouse, for instance, because not everybody has the movability of their arms to use a mouse. And that's one that's often forgotten.
Where we see that navigating a website in an accessible way is quite a challenge. For instance, it's also one that's often forgotten. Making sure that your website is adapted to people with color blindness, where using colors it can be very confusing. If you don't see the difference between red and green, and the entire website is red and green, then you're not seeing anything. Also about the contrast, it's contrast indeed. It's the use of the right types of letters, the right fonts.
So making your website 100% accessible is a lot of work in the end, basically technical work.
And I'm a lawyer, so I won't get into the technical details. I'm not smart enough for that people. A sense of what is it entailing. And also it's quite an investment you need to do.
It's quite an investment with a lot of issues in hidden corners because your entire website can be accessible and then you have a mobile version of your website and nobody thought about making that accessible as well.
So what we see a lot is that the desktop or the laptop website is quite okay. But then if you switch to mobile versions, the issues start to come. What we also see, and I think that's pretty funny because. I was here a long time ago to talk about cookies. So you know that every website needs a cookie consent banner that as well has to be accessible. And a lot of the consent management platforms on the market today, they aren't. They aren't.
And even if you put a PDF on your website and you have forming it or whatever, it also needs to be accessible.
Yes. So there's a lot of work to be done for companies. Time is ticking. We'll come to that perhaps in a few minutes. But time is ticking. You have to, really have to get working today. And what is important is that I think from a legal perspective, is that a lot of that work for website owners is their responsibility, their obligation to make sure that their website is okay. But the work to be done lies with the developer, the webmaster, the website manager, so often with a third party.
And the entire question is, how do I make sure as the owner of a website that my web developer will get to work in time and do the necessary work? And what if he doesn't?
What if he ensures me that he or she ensures me that the website is accessible, but it turns out that it isn't because the fines will come to you. And I can also imagine that all those webmasters managing so many websites will get the question from all their clients.
At the same time there will be a rush of work for them. And what is a bit scary is that, and we do a lot of work in the legal aspects of web development as well, that a lot of web developers aren't ready, are lacking the knowledge and are lacking the skills today to do the necessary work.
So don't wait for your digital partner to come to you, step to them and make sure that they get to work in time.
Yeah, but maybe let's look at what the legal text says. What is it we need to do? But you also mentioned deadlines.
There are a few deadlines, that is one. Basically the basic deadline is next year, June 28, June 2025.
That's coming fast.
That's coming fast because if you have to start making changes to your website or to platforms or to, even if you sell hardware to the hardware itself. So it's more than just the websites, but let's stick to the websites for the time being.
If you have to start planning changes, a few months is gone before, you know. So basically next year, June. Now luckily there are a few exceptions. Any digital devices, ticketing machines, banking machines that are on the market, they can stay as they are until the end of their life circle. So they're an exception. But that's not relevant to most of us.
Also, small companies with less than 50 people, I think working and less than 10 million euro turnover, they get five years extra. So there you still have till 2030. So that's an exception.
That is important, I think. But if you have somewhat of a big turnover or a lot of people working for you, if you're not a small company, then next year is the deadline, basically. And the only way to escape is by coming to the conclusion, and it has to be a justified, motivated conclusion, that the investment would be disproportional in investment or in technical implications.
So if it's too difficult or too expensive to do the necessary changes. You can give yourself some extra time to do the necessary changes, but you have to motivate it. And it has to be publicly visible on your website because that is the next legal aspect of the story. Everything. What you will have to do is an accessibility audit.
You'll have to list the things that you would probably need to do to make your website accessible. You will have to list the things that you have already done, and you will have to explain the future measures that you're going to take to reach the goal that you should reach. And if you decide that it's too expensive or too difficult, as I said, you have to modify why all of that has to be packaged into an accessibility policy that has to be on your website. Another policy.
We already have terms and conditions. We already have a disclaimer. We already have a cookie policy. We already have a privacy policy. Now we will also have an accessibility policy that has to explain in detail what you have done and what you're going to do to make sure your website is accessible.
Now, if you look at public services, as I said, they already have the same rules applying to them for a few years now. A lot of them have those policies, and I've examined quite a few of them over the past few months because we've done a few talks on the subject. Most of those policies are very inaccessible. There it starts already, of course, yes, because inaccessible in a few ways because one often they are in a PDF that is, and as you said, the PDF has to be accessible. Usually it isn't.
It's in small writing, almost even for people with good functioning eyes, almost impossible to read, but also inaccessible from the point of view that you don't understand what's in there. The language that is used is something that makes a lot of sense for technical people, but that doesn't make sense for the average visitor of your website. So as with privacy policies, the challenge is to use human language to explain something to humans, instead of using technical language to explain something to technical specialists.
You mentioned something that if you're a small company or below a certain turnover, you get five years extra. But if I understood correctly, and correct me if I'm wrong, that doesn't apply for any new things you build.
Those need to be, yes. As soon as you start doing new developments, if you're going to launch a new website, it has to be accessible right from the start. So you can use the exception if you don't make any major changes or new developments over the coming five years. So indeed, that is limited.
You have to take that into account. I think that it will probably not last the full five years and that you will probably have to get to work anyway. Even if you can enjoy the exception for the time being, even if you're a small company, don't wait out those five years, because somewhere along the road you will have to start making the changes.
And why not get to work with it in time instead of waiting and pushing things forward?
Yeah, you also said you could argue that the investment is too big, but that's already a tricky thing to prove it on the other side, I'm not sure that that is a strategic and commercial best decision to make.
As with all things, as with privacy and consumer protection, the first thing you have to ask yourself, who am I? As a business? Who do I want to be? What message do I want to convey to my audience? I always personally think that trust is very important online and you have to gain trust. And gaining trust is by selling good things at a good price and offering good service. But trust is also respecting people's privacy rights, respecting people's limitations.
In this case, make sure that you are accessible, and accessible also from a consumer protection point of view, be present. I see a lot of websites where if you want to contact the website, the only way to do it is through a form, a web form. You can't call them, you can't email them.
That's another kind of accessibility that we're not talking about today. That's not a smart thing to do. Making your website difficult to access for one in four people is not a smart thing to do. So the first question is, who do I want to be?
And if you want to be the guy that tries to save a few bucks, a few dollars, a few euros, not to make an investment and do so, but it will have an impact on your company image. Of course.
And for those legal policies, I assume it's also best practice to check with somebody who has the experience with it.
Yes, please. I know a few people that have experience with the legal tell us yes, the policy has to be okay, and the policy has to be there, even if you think that you have the exception for five years. So you will have to make that change in any event.
But what is more important from a legal perspective, I think, is that you have to start reviewing contracts with your web developer. As I said before, you'll probably have to check a few other policies on your website as well, because it's very well possible that in order to make your website accessible, you will have to use tracking technology that has an impact on cookies and privacy.
So you will have to review the whole set of policies. I think you will have to check other running contracts, insurance policies, possibly also where any claims from customers will be covered only if you comply to all applicable laws.
And this could be one where you don't apply, where you don't comply. So there is a legal check to be done that is a bit broader than just the policy online.
All right, good to know. I think we all know what to do this next few months, but thank you very much for sharing this knowledge in our show.
You're welcome.
And you at home, thank you for watching our show. I hope to see you next week.
