Accessibility
Law
More and more countries are developing laws to deter discrimination against those with disabilities, and some of these laws extend to inequality of access to web sites.
UK laws
In the UK, the relevant legislation is the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA). (Note, in the testing field, DDA can also stand for Demographic Data Access, and in Statistics, for Descriptive Data Analysis). The DDA is fully in force from October 2004, though much of it came into force earlier.
- A hard act to follow? Complying with Part 3 of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995
- Digital Media Access Group: The Updated Code of Practice for Part iii of the Disability Discrimination Act
- Disability: Disability Discrimination Act (UK Gov.)
- Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) (1995)
- DRC Code of Practice (PDF)
- GAWDS: Web accessibility and the law in the UK
- MIS Web Design: DDA
- RNIB: The Disability Discrimination Act 1995 - Web access centre
- System Concepts Ltd: Is your website accessible to everyone?
- UK Insite: Accessibility and the law
- VORD Web Design: Summary of the DDA
- Webcredible: Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) & web accessibility
International laws
In the USA, Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (strengthened in the Workforce Investment Act of 1998) which came into effect in 2001. Whilst not universally applicable, it does set standards.
The DDA is similar to the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA).
Australia also has a Disability Discrimination Act of 1992 (DDA)
Under construction