Can automation make website policing more effective and efficient?

11 Nov 2020 | Accessibility

Adam Turner
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One of the key challenges for authorities on both sides of the Atlantic is how to properly “police” websites so more of them are properly accessible for users with disabilities, reducing the discrimination that is currently evident in far too many sites. At the moment there is a strong disconnect between the number of organisations who believe their sites are compliant in terms of digital accessibility, and those that actually are.

Despite perhaps some better levels of awareness around digital accessibility, the proportion of sites who are actually accessible for disabled users is woefully inadequate. This not only presents opportunities for a potential avalanche of legal action, but it also means users with disabilities are extensively disadvantaged when it comes to access to information and digital services. During a global pandemic when many things have moved online, accessibility has never been so important.

Making the difference

The question is, what can authorities and legislators do to actually make a difference? Sitemorse CEO Lawrence Shaw was recently extensively quoted in an article for Forbes written by journalist Gus Alexiou. Although the article is focused on the Online Accessibility Act in the US, the article looks at the bigger picture.

Here Shaw argues that a courtroom-based approach to policing accessibility is unlikely to work and more imagination is needed.  

“What we are looking at with the Online Accessibility Act, is an antiquated application of the law against things that are moving far faster.

“The lawmakers are constrained in their mindset because they are thinking about how to solve digital policing through overburdened courts in a traditional manner, rather than starting with a blank sheet of paper and focusing on marrying the evolving digital world with historic needs regulation.”

In particular, Shaw sees there being a significant role for automation to meet the challenges of policing such a huge number of websites, principally using automation to initially file and assess any complaints that are received. Website owners could then receive automated notices of complaints received and make the necessary amendments, resulting in faster improvements in terms of accessibility at scale.  

A condition for this to work would be to focus on a simpler core element of the WCAG guidelines (the “accountable standard”) rather than the “substantial compliance” that may be more open to interpretation and therefore the to-and-fro of legal action.

The need for greater accountability

In the article Shaw also stresses the importance of introducing greater accountability across the vendor landscape. Here there are numerous solutions that over-promise on the impact of their products and lure organisations into a false sense of security into believing they are doing everything they need to do to make their website accessible.

Shaw comments

“I think the [Online Accessibility] Act should be looking to incorporate culpable liability. So, under basic contract law, if a website is being sued for accessibility failure, the owner should retain the right to sue third party suppliers, such as accessibility plugin and CMS vendors.

“A major problem within our industry is that you have plenty of people paying lip service to compliance and a lot of suppliers marketing the promise of compliance to people who don’t understand enough about the subject and have to trust their vendors.”

Another potential approach Shaw suggests for dealing with potential serial offenders who continue to fail on digital accessibility is to suspend website domains.

“This may appear controversial, but if after more detailed investigations, a website fails three times in the same year, I think it should have its domain suspended.”

Do you agree? Check out the article: New Online Accessibility Act in dire need of a 2020 approach to website policing