02 Accessibility Legislation
This chapter includes information on accessibility legislation and is organised into countries. The description of each country's legislation follows a similar structure, and begins with a list of relevant acts, both general disability and equality acts, and specific acts relating to digital accessibility, with links to the full legislation and guidance on them.
In practice it can be difficult to pinpoint whether these acts apply to ebooks, as they more often describe websites and mobile applications, but in general web accessibility also applies to static digital files that can be downloaded from them. It can also be difficult to determine whether the legislation applies to small diamond open access publishers, which can be considered to be public bodies in most cases, but not all. For this reason, we also include some commentary on our judgements of applicability to ebook files and diamond publishers (that does not constitute legal advice).
We also highlight the accessibility standards required by the legislation, which in most cases is some version of WCAG at level AA, and link to those full standards and guidance on them. We also summarise and highlight legislative requirements about accessibility statements, again including guidance and some key examples. Exemptions to legal requirements are also summarised, which in most cases include some form of disproportionate or undue burden, and so information on how to evidence that is also incorporated.
Finally, a note about international legislation is included at the end of each country's summary, with some information on how this intersects with the country's national legislation.
UK
Relevant Acts Equality Act 2010 is the legislation that states both public and private bodies ca...
EU
Relevant Acts The European Accessibility Act (EAA) is the legislation that states some products ...
US
Relevant Acts The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is the legislation that states both ‘sta...