This article is not complete in any way. I am also not a lawyer. I try to add updates whenever something happens though 🙂
In the US, creators of inaccessible digital products can already be sued because of the Americans with Disabilites Act (ADA). For example a visually impaired user sued the company running the website of singer Beyoncé. Also the pizza chain Dominos was sued for its inaccessible website and mobile app (see 1. in References). In the EU there was no similar act yet. However, this will come soon with the European Accessibility Act.
Here is a very short list about the European Accessibility Act. If you want to go into more detail, I recommend to start from https://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=1202&langId=en
- 2018 the EU agreed upon the European Accessibility Act.
- Countries must translate this act into national law by June, 28th 2022 and apply this by June 28th, 2025.
- EN 301 549 is the European norm for digital accessibility and it mentions Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) for how to apply this norm.
- WCAG 2.1 (the most recent version) unfortunately focuses on web, version 2.2 is currently in the making.
- This act targets more or less every app or website (see 2. in References)
Does my app conform to the EU Accessibility Act, EN 301 549 or any national A11y law?
I am not a lawyer in any way. But as far as I can tell it is currently a little bit unclear how to exactly conform to the EU Accessibility Act or any national laws applicable to your product. Court decisions in near future will make it easier to derive “best practices” or something like that. I guess we will soon have a situation similar to the introduction of GDPR. Hopefully, we do not get “Accessibility Overlays” or something like that everywhere.
Germany: Barrierefreiheitsstärkungsgesetz (BFSG)
For me as a German citizen and iOS developer currently working in Germany, this is of particular interest. Hooray, we have a national law! It is there for actually some time now (since July 2021) also there is a so called executive order (since June 2022) which gives some more concrete examples on how to practically use this new law.
In another article I take a closer look at this new law and the associated executive order, see https://mic.st/blog/barrierefreiheitsstarkungsgesetz-bfsg-in-apps-or-digital-services-and-products/ for that.
Conclusion
The best you as a developer can do now is to get familiar with the accessibility APIs on your platform and fix obvious problems. Designers should include the topic in their daily workflow and decision makers (e.g. Product Owners or managers) need to plan in more time for accessibility topic.
Start working on accessibility topics as soon as possible in order to not be surprised later by complaints in your product’s reviews, missing knowledge for fixing issues or worst case: Law suits.
In another blog post I put together a list of resources to help you with that: https://mic.st/blog/mobile-accessibility-links/