From
Dan Pescod, who is campaigns manager for the Royal National Institute of Blind People and the European Blind Union.
It is a
cliché, but true, that we live in an information age. We Tweet from our
mobile phones, send emails from our tablets and watch television on our
laptops. But how do blind and partially sighted people cope with this
brave new world? To try to put ourselves in the shoes of a blind person,
let us focus just on access to websites and books. If space allowed I
could fill another article explaining how television programmes, TV
sets, radios and mobile phones - to name but a few - are also often
needlessly inaccessible.
Firstly, the good news is that
technology can overcome many of the barriers the information age would
otherwise present to blind people. With more and more shops, government
and information services going online - it is good to know that some
websites are designed accessibly to be 'read' by 'text-to-speech'
software and be easily visible to those with low vision. Guidelines for
developers exist to achieve this.
As for books, it is possible
to either use text to speech software to 'read' digital files or text,
or for an accessible eBook reader to hear to a synthesised voice read
the book. There are even digital devices that produce 'refreshable'
braille on a braille keypad. Here is the bad news, however, summed up in
two 'onlys'. Only a tiny percentage of websites are fully accessible to
blind and partially sighted people. And only around 5 per cent of books
published are produced in formats, whether electronic or physical -
like paper large-print books - which can be read by blind people or the
machines they use. What has the European Union done in these areas to
ensure accessibility?
With regard to websites, in 2007 the
European Commission published a study showing that less than 3 per cent
of key public and commercial websites in each member state met accepted
international accessibility standards. It has since held several
conferences on 'e-inclusion', but there has been little practical
progress. As online public services are gradually replacing face-to-face
interaction, blind people are still waiting for the commission to
publish draft legislation to ensure that all public websites and online
portals providing basic services to citizens are fully accessible.
Proposals were expected at the end of 2011. They have yet to
materialise.
One of the ways we can end the 'book famine' in
which only 5 per cent of books are made accessible to blind people is by
reforming copyright law. To cut a complex story far too short, the
European Blind Union is campaigning with the World Blind Union for a
treaty at the World Intellectual Property Organisation - the United
Nations body that makes international copyright law. Our treaty would
allow the pooling of resources by allowing organisations like the Royal
National Institute of Blind People, in the United Kingdom, to share
scarce accessible books with other countries. The commission has been
sceptical about this proposal. In 2010, it got us around the table to
try to work out a voluntary agreement with European publishers -
mirroring a similar 'stakeholder dialogue' it set up - with modest
results on TV accessibility.
The European Parliament has been
strongly in favour of the treaty, and the European Council has been
against it. So, last October, we petitioned the EP explaining that the
commission and council were letting blind people down by not backing the
call for a treaty. As a result, the parliament plenary grilled European
Internal Market and Services Commissioner Michel Barnier in February.
Barnier told MEPs that he would seek a "negotiating mandate" from the
council so that the EU could, finally, negotiate at the WIPO for the
binding treaty we have long called for. We await the council's response.
In summary, there have been repeated public commitments from the
council, from as far back as 2002, and support from the European
Parliament - to legislate as well as discuss accessibility for blind and
other disabled people.
The entry into force of the 2008 UN
Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities has not yet
spurred the EU into strong enough action on access to information.
Stakeholder discussions and conferences only take us so far. Now is the
time for the commission to propose clear and useful EU accessibility
legislation and for the member states to help blind people worldwide by
unambiguously backing a WIPO book treaty. The commission and council can
make 2013 the landmark year in which they demonstrate they mean
business when it comes to blind people's access to information. The
technology is there. Now we need the political will to match it.
