Accessibility requirements for ICT in Europe

The European Commission (EC) has issued a draft of "Accessibility requirements for public procurement of ICT products and services in Europe".

The EC daft  calls up the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0, which recently became an international standard(ISO/IEC 40500 2012). This is unlikely to be controversial. More contentious are the requirements for Real Time Text (RTT, telecommunications device for the deaf (TDD) or in Australia teletypewriter, TTY), where there are differences in national standards.

There is an overview in "Digital Agenda: Commission proposes rules to make government websites accessible for all" (EC, IP/12/1305, 03/12/2012) and a list of the draft documents in "European Accessibility Requirements for Public Procurement of Products and Services in the ICT Domain" (European Commission Standardization Mandate M 376, Phase 2).