Equal Opportunities for Disabled People

1

• Equal Opportunities for Disabled People
• Web Accessibility Legislation in Germany
• Overview

2
Background

• Constitution Basic law (Grundgesetz)
• Art. 3 (3) Sentence 2 (reception in 1994)
• Ban of discrimination on grounds of a
  Disability

3
Paradigma Change

• Once
• public welfare
• help assistance to People with Disabilities
  (PwD)
• Since 2001
• Participation, Self-determination Inclusion
• Right to PwD of choices and demands on their
  perspective in administrative procedures
• Joint work with organisations of PwD (as experts
  on their affairs)
• Nothing about us without us

4
Federal Law Concerning PwD

• Social Code Book IX
• Rehabilitation and Participation of PwD
• Act on Equal Opportunities for PwD
• Equal treatment by federal administration
• General Act on Equal Treatment
• Equalization in Civil Law
• http//www.antidiskriminierungsstelle.de/bmfsfj/ge
  nerator/ADS-en/root.html

5
Act on Equal Opportunities BITV

• Eliminate and prevent the discrimination of
  disabled persons ensure an equal participation
  of disabled persons in the life of society.
• 11 Barrier-free Information Technology
• Public authorities shall technically design
  their Internet presentations and the graphic user
  interfaces which they make available and which
  are presented by means of information technology
  gradually in such a way that they may generally
  be used by PwD without restrictions.
• Ordinance on barrier-free Information Technology
  (BITV)
• Requirements and conditions for the design of
  accessible Websites laid down in the BITV follows
  those of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
  (WCAG 1.0)

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eEurope and BITV

• eEurope Actionplan 2002/2005/i2010
• Council Conclusions 2002/2003/2006 on
  eAccessibility / Web-accessibility
• Riga declaration 2006
• member states should (have) adopt(ed) and
  implement(ed) WACG (1.0)
• BITV from july 2002
• Technical content, criterias and priorities are
  based on WCAG Version 1.0 by World Wide Web
  Consortiums (W3C)
• Deadline for acces of pathes with priority I
  (Dec/31/2005)

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BITV 1.0 Testing and Evaluating

• German Web-alliances and partnership-initiatives
• Testing Websites (Main-test in 2006 of Federal
  Agencies WS)
• Web-portals with informations and suggestions for
  Web-accessibilty
• http//www.abi-projekt.de/
• http//www.webbarrieren.wob11.de/
• http//www.bik-online.info/
• Certification sheme
• DIN Certco

8
BITV 2.0 and WCAG 2.0

• Evaluation had shown need for further development
• Expert-working group at the Federal Ministry of
  Labour and Social Affairs
• Drafting new BITV 2.0 in 2007/2008
• Watching the developments on WCAG 2.0
• Finalizing the draft of BITV 2.0 as WCAG 2.0 were
  published
• BITV 2.0 in progress
• Presentation and discussion of the draft with
  ministries, Federal States and organisations,
  experts of disabled people
• Afterwards Preparation of the adoption of BITV
  2.0

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Web Accessibility Legislation in Germany

• Thanks for your attention!