Law, policy and procurement: how access is actually enforced

The module has treated access as a design problem, a research problem and a measurement problem. This last of ten units asks what compels it: a statute can declare a right and a standard can set a threshold, and neither builds anything.

The thesis is that legal duty sets the floor and supplies the language, while the procurement contract and the timing of the duty are the strongest levers on practice. On that reading, the distance between a legal duty and the access a person receives is a gap of implementation, timing and incentives rather than a gap in the statute. Wentz, Jaeger and Lazar (2011) argue the contrary.

Access is a right, and policy follows its measured absence

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2006) establishes accessibility as a right rather than a service, requiring states to ensure access to information and communications technology and to promote universal design.

The Disability Rights Commission (2004) tested 1,000 home pages with an automated tool, finding 808, or 81 per cent, carrying Priority 1 Checkpoint violations and only 19 per cent potentially compliant at the lowest level; a panel of disabled users then succeeded in 76 per cent of 769 tasks on 100 sites, but only 53 per cent for blind participants.

Lazar and Stein (2017) collected work on law, policy and implementation across countries, arguing that access to information technology is a human-rights question and belongs to institutional design rather than individual accommodation. Jaeger (2006) argued the same for telecommunications, where policy decides whether disabled people join the information society.

In the United States, litigation set the terms first

The Americans with Disabilities Act (1990) prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability in places of public accommodation. It was not drafted for the web, and for places of public accommodation its application still rests on litigation and Department of Justice guidance rather than web-specific text, a route closed to the complainant who cannot afford to pursue it. For state and local government a Department of Justice rule of 2024 adopted WCAG 2.1 Level AA for public entities' web content and mobile apps, with compliance dates of April 2027 and April 2028 after a 2026 amendment.

Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act (1998) took the other route. It requires federal agencies to make their electronic and information technology accessible, and it reaches the technology an agency procures. A 2017 Access Board final rule refreshed the standards and harmonised them with WCAG 2.0.

Olalere and Lazar (2011) evaluated 100 federal home pages with human and automated methods and analysed the statements on them. Many remained inaccessible despite the explicit legal duty, and the statements often provided no useful information.

The timing of the fix is part of the problem

Wentz, Jaeger and Lazar (2011) examined the parts of United States law that let accessibility be added after a system is deployed. Because accessibility is usually retrofitted, disabled users meet a service later and under worse terms than non-disabled users. The authors call that a separate but unequal online environment.

That locates the defect in the statute and is the sharpest challenge to this unit's thesis: if the law allows retrofitting, it is not a neutral floor that implementation fails to reach. Wentz and colleagues (2011) gave the consequence a number. In 2011, 54 per cent of United States adults with disabilities used the internet against 81 per cent of other adults, and home broadband reached 41 per cent against 69 per cent. They read the gap as the product of a legal regime in which access is permitted to arrive after the service does.

Europe paired the duty with a published statement

The European Union built its framework on the Convention. Directive 2016/2102 requires public sector bodies to make their websites and mobile applications accessible, to publish an accessibility statement on their compliance and to link conformance to European standards. Websites were to comply by 23 September 2018.

In the United Kingdom the general duty came first. The Equality Act 2010 requires service providers to make reasonable adjustments, treating the provision of information in an accessible format as one, so the duty to accommodate predates any web rule. The Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018 then implemented the Directive with the same three duties: meet the requirement, publish a statement, report on compliance.

The statement regime compels disclosure as well as conformance, and its weakness is its point: a statement records what an organisation says about itself, and a body that meets the requirement but publishes none is still in breach. Ferri and Favalli (2018) found that European harmonised standards and enforcement had lagged the rights the Convention promised.

A duty changes practice when a contract names the standard

Section 508 conditions what an agency may procure, and the same logic runs through the European framework. Directive (EU) 2019/882 sets accessibility requirements for a range of products and services, among them computers, smartphones, e-readers, banking and e-commerce, and has applied since 28 June 2025.

Behind the law sits a technical standard. EN 301 549 sets accessibility requirements for information and communication technology and incorporates WCAG for web content, making it the bridge between a legal duty and a testable criterion (ETSI, 2021). A rights instrument becomes enforceable only when it names a standard, and a standard changes practice only when a contract names it.

Contested question: is the gap in the statute or in its implementation?

The literature agrees that law has not delivered access and disagrees about where the fault lies. One position locates the gap in implementation, timing and incentives, which is this unit's thesis: the Disability Rights Commission (2004) measured failure while a general duty was in force, and Olalere and Lazar (2011) found federal sites failing a specific duty.

A second locates the defect in the statute. Wentz, Jaeger and Lazar (2011) argue that United States law, by permitting accessibility to be added after deployment, actively produces the separate and unequal outcome, so a remedy requires amended law and consistent enforcement. A third holds that the lever is the rights framework itself, implemented through institutions and remedies. The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2006) and the volume edited by Lazar and Stein (2017) treat access as a right whose realisation depends on institutional design. Ferri and Favalli (2018) document the European route that converts it into duties with a timetable.

The three positions rest on evidence of different kinds. The implementation case rests on an audit of 1,000 home pages and an evaluation of 100 federal home pages, both measuring access delivered under an existing duty. The statute defect rests on an argument about how a legal permission shapes behaviour, supported by two survey statistics that show a gap without dating its cause. The rights case rests on an instrument and a commentary, which state an obligation rather than measure its effect.

The strongest objection is that the unit's own evidence cannot separate timing from implementation. The violation rate and the 53 per cent task success rate for blind participants were both recorded while a duty was in force, and neither records when the sites were built. If a service arrived before the duty that governs it, the retrofitting account explains the same numbers, so the two positions are not distinguishable from the data the unit cites.

What would settle it is a longitudinal comparison that separates the date of the legal duty from the date of measured access, holding the standard constant. The Disability Rights Commission (2004) supplies the measurement design and EN 301 549 supplies a stable threshold. No study in this unit's list carries that measurement across a change in law.

What to do while the dispute is open

While the dispute is open, record when a duty applied and when a system was built, and report the two dates together. Where a contract is the lever, write the standard into the contract rather than the guidance around it, and name the user it reaches last, in later life, on a metered connection.

Where the argument is heading

The direction of travel is from the public sector to the market, and from guidance to contracts. The European framework moved in one step from the websites of public bodies (Directive 2016/2102) to a wide class of products and services (Directive 2019/882). EN 301 549 is the technical spine (ETSI, 2021). Wentz, Jaeger and Lazar (2011) set out the trajectory, born-accessible technology with consistent enforcement. Ferri and Favalli (2018) identified member states' enforcement capacity as the variable that decides the outcome.

The sources this unit rests on

• US Government (1990). Americans with Disabilities Act. Washington: US Department of Justice. https://www.ada.gov/ Prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability in places of public accommodation, and its application to websites has been established through litigation and Department of Justice guidance. It is the statute most often used in United States web accessibility cases.
• US Department of Justice (2024). Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Disability; Accessibility of Web Information and Services of State and Local Government Entities. Final rule, 89 FR 31320. https://www.ada.gov/resources/2024-03-08-web-rule/ Adopts WCAG 2.1 Level AA for the web content and mobile apps of state and local governments, with compliance dates extended a year in 2026.
• US Government (1998). Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act. Washington: US Access Board. https://www.section508.gov/manage/laws-and-policies/ Requires federal agencies to make their electronic and information technology accessible, including the technology they procure. A 2017 Access Board final rule refreshed the standards and harmonised them with WCAG 2.0, making it the unit's reference case for procurement-driven law.
• Disability Rights Commission (2004). The Web: Access and Inclusion for Disabled People. London: The Stationery Office. https://disability-studies.leeds.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/40/library/DRC-Web-FI.pdf Tested 1,000 home pages with an automated tool and found 808, or 81 per cent, carrying Priority 1 Checkpoint violations, leaving only 19 per cent potentially compliant at the lowest level. A panel of disabled users then tested 100 sites and succeeded in 76 per cent of 769 tasks overall, but blind participants succeeded in only 53 per cent. It is the unit's primary evidence that policy followed measured failure.
• Jaeger, P. T. (2006). Telecommunications policy and individuals with disabilities. Telecommunications Policy. doi:10.1016/j.telpol.2005.10.001 Argues that telecommunications policy determines whether disabled people are included in the information society and that research had neglected the policy dimension. It carries the unit's claim that access is set by regulation before it is set by design.
• United Nations (2006). Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. New York: United Nations. https://www.un.org/development/desa/disabilities/convention-on-the-rights-of-persons-with-disabilities.html Establishes accessibility as a right, requiring states to ensure access to information and communications technology and to promote universal design. It is the instrument national accessibility law is written to satisfy and the benchmark the unit measures that law against.
• UK Parliament (2010). Equality Act 2010. London: The Stationery Office. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/contents Requires service providers to make reasonable adjustments and treats the provision of information in an accessible format as one such adjustment. It supplies the unit's account of a general equality duty that predates any web-specific rule.
• Olalere, A. and Lazar, J. (2011). Accessibility of U.S. federal government home pages. Government Information Quarterly. doi:10.1016/j.giq.2011.02.002 Evaluated 100 federal home pages with human and automated methods and analysed the accessibility statements published on them. Many sites remained inaccessible despite the explicit legal duty, and the statements often provided no useful information, so the paper carries the claim that legal duty is necessary but not sufficient.
• Wentz, B., Jaeger, P. T. and Lazar, J. (2011). Retrofitting accessibility. First Monday. doi:10.5210/fm.v16i11.3666 Examined the parts of United States law that permit accessibility to be added after deployment and argued that they produce a separate but unequal online environment in which disabled users meet a service later and under worse terms. Their remedy is born-accessible technology with consistent enforcement. It is the unit's strongest counter-argument, locating the defect in the statute rather than its implementation.
• European Parliament and Council (2016). Directive (EU) 2016/2102 on the accessibility of the websites and mobile applications of public sector bodies. Official Journal of the European Union. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2016/2102/oj Requires public sector bodies to make their websites and mobile applications accessible, publish an accessibility statement and link conformance to European standards, with websites to comply by 23 September 2018. It created the statement regime the unit treats as policy that mandates disclosure as well as conformance.
• Lazar, J. and Stein, M. A. (eds) (2017). Disability, Human Rights, and Information Technology. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. doi:10.9783/9780812294095 Collects work on law, policy and the implementation of accessibility across countries and argues that access to information technology is a human-rights question. It treats accessibility as a matter of rights and institutional design rather than individual accommodation.
• Ferri, D. and Favalli, S. (2018). Web accessibility for people with disabilities in the European Union. Societies. doi:10.3390/soc8020040 Examined the European legal framework for web accessibility, locating it within implementation of the Convention, and found that harmonised standards and enforcement had lagged the rights the framework promised. Written while the European Accessibility Act was still a proposal, it is the European account of the policy gap.
• UK Government (2018). The Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018. London: The Stationery Office. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2018/952/contents Requires public sector websites and mobile applications to meet the accessibility requirement, publish an accessibility statement and report on compliance. It is the United Kingdom implementation of the European directive and the unit's concrete mechanism of legal duty with public disclosure.
• European Parliament and Council (2019). Directive (EU) 2019/882 on the accessibility requirements for products and services. Official Journal of the European Union. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2019/882/oj Sets accessibility requirements for a wide range of products and services, among them computers, smartphones, e-readers, consumer banking and e-commerce. Member states were to transpose it by 28 June 2022 and it has applied since 28 June 2025, making it the widest single legal instrument in the unit.
• European Telecommunications Standards Institute (2021). EN 301 549: Accessibility requirements for ICT products and services. Sophia Antipolis: ETSI. https://www.etsi.org/deliver/etsi_en/301500_301599/301549/03.02.01_60/en_301549v030201p.pdf Sets accessibility requirements for information and communication technology and incorporates WCAG for web content, providing the technical reference European law cites. It carries the unit's claim that the guideline standard becomes legally binding through a technical standard, which is the bridge between law and testable criteria.