Digital freedom for people with disabilities in the 21st century

1
Digital freedom for people with disabilities in
the 21st century

• Project conducted by
• Peter Blanck (USA), Gerard Quinn (Ireland),
• Bjørn Hvinden Rune Halvorsen (Norway)
• 2006-2008

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Background

• New information and communication technology
  (ICT) has the potential of improving the life
  quality, the participation and effective freedom
  of people with disabilities.
• telecoms, hardware, software, electronic
  commerce, public information services, internet,
  broadcast and interactive services.
• This potential tends, however, not to be fully
  realised in practice, even in affluent and highly
  developed societies.
• Some ways of using ICT may even create new
  barriers to participation and effectively prevent
  access and equal opportunities

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Technology adoption and expertise in some Western
countries

• The Nordic countries and the USA top global
  technology indexes, with Denmark, Finland,
  Iceland, Sweden and the USA as the leading
  countries and Norway ranking a bit lower (The
  World Economic Forum 2006, IDC 2006).
• Norway has a relatively larger consumption of ICT
  per capita compared to the United States.
• In 1999 mobile subscriptions constituted 42 of
  all telephone subscriptions in Norway as compared
  to 29 in the United States (Knorr 2002).

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Research objectives

• The project will clarify under which conditions
  ICT can contribute to social inclusion of people
  with disabilities.
• Comparative cross-national study of
• Policy and institutional design, e.g. regulatory
  systems, and systems of implementation,
  supervision and monitoring.
• A legal analysis of right-based strategies to
  strengthen access to environments for people with
  disabilities, internationally and nationally.
• Compares legal and policy regimes in USA,
  Australia and Western Europe (DK, IR, NO, NL, S,
  UK)
• Norway is not particularly advanced in this area
  but has a large potential.
• A dynamic field with rapid changes
• About to establish a reference group of relevant
  stakeholders, including organizations of people
  with disabilities

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Three interrelated levels in the development,
adoption and implementation of ICT

• Basic level How to promote the development and
  application of ICT technology that is useful by
  people with a range of disabilities, particularly
  from a universal design perspective?
• Intermediate level How to develop public and
  private standards for products and services based
  on this potential?
• Higher level How to reach decisions on policy
  goals, commitment to objectives, values and
  rights, with input of all relevant stakeholders?
  How to promote appropriate forms of dialogue with
  and involvement of relevant stakeholders
  (including people with disabilities),
  transposition, monitoring, compliance, and
  implementation?

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Social regulation policies

• Social regulation policies will remedy market
  failures rather than to compensate for the
  unwanted social effects of (biased) competition
  in the market.
• It involves government efforts to influence the
  functioning of markets and the behaviour of
  non-governmental actors with a view to promoting
  social objectives either by way of legislation,
  financial incentives, persuasion or a combination
  thereof.
• A basic assumption is to correct market failures
  that is not avoided or even created by the
  liberty of choices of the actors in the market.

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Types of social regulation policy

• Rest on different assumptions about how one may
  influence non-governmental actors.
• Legislation presupposes that it is possible to
  force actors to behave in certain manners, or at
  least prevent them for behaving in unwanted ways,
  given the prospects of punishment if they do not
  comply with the rules.
• Financial incentives presuppose that it is
  possible to get actors to act in certain ways,
  even if they do not have to, because these ways
  are cost-effective or profitable.
• Persuasion presupposes that it is possible to
  have actors behave in a certain manner by
  convincing them that it is morally and
  normatively right to do so, and that it would
  affect their conscience and self-respect if they
  did not comply with the moral standards of
  society.
• The distinction between the types of policy
  measures is analytic. In practice, there will be
  intermediary cases. Additionally there will be
  opportunities to combine the three types of
  policy measures.

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Social regulation policies

• Standardisation (voluntary and mandatory)
• Public procurement rules
• Third party benchmarking
• Consultations, information, awareness raising
• Financial support to the adoptions of new and
  updated hardware and software
• Research and Development (stimulate to and
  support production of new inventions)

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Redistributive policies

• providing financial support to individuals to
  acquire appropriate ICT (given the nature of
  their impairments and their situation)
• covering all or some of the costs of
  accommodating ICT to the requirements in
  particular situations
• often state-financed assistance and services

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Scandinavian countries

• All three countries are affluent and have highly
  developed and encompassing public systems of
  income maintenance and services, aiming at an
  equalisation of life chances and opportunities.
• Extensive public redistribution of resources is
  complemented by various measures of social
  regulation (e.g. in the areas like health,
  safety, work and other forms of physical
  environments).
• Although many regulatory measures aim at
  preventing problems and minimising needs that the
  redistributive measures otherwise would have to
  deal with, the exact relationship between
  regulation and redistribution is not clear.
  Scandinavian policy-makers have intended a
  mutually supportive and interdependent
  relationship between the two.
• Yet, there are several indications that
  redistributive measures are more strongly
  developed and elaborate than regulatory measures,
  creating an imbalance in the overall social
  protection systems of the Scandinavian countries

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Norwegian ICT policy

• Until recently more focus has been on individual
  accommodation when the needs arise and technical
  aids, to a large extent financed by the state
  than on standardization and DFA.
• The Assistive Technology Centers, administrated
  in co-operation with the local authorities,
  financed by the National Insurance Office
• Expenses 1st half 2005
• NOK 1 239 454 000 in all
• NOK 112 527 000 on computer technology
• NOK 175 451 000 other communication aids
• The National Resource Centre for Participation
  and Accessibility was set up in 2001.

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Norwegian ICT policy II

• New public procurement legislation in 2006
  (corresponding to Directive 2004/18/EC)
• Art 6 State, municipal and county authorities
  and governmental liable bodies shall during the
  planning of each procurement allow for life
  cycle costs, universal design and environmental
  consequences of the procurement.
• Not mentioned accessibility for people with
  disabilities
• implementation postponed to 1 January 2007)

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Norwegian ICT policy III

• Proposal for Act relating to prohibition against
  discrimination on the basis of disability (from
  2007 at the earliest) (green paper 2005)
• Public undertakings and private undertakings that
  offer goods and services to the general public
  are required to make active and targeted efforts
  regarding general accommodation (universal
  design) provided this does not entail an undue
  burden for the undertaking.
• Duty to individual accommodation
• Buildings, constructions and outdoor areas
  intended for the use of the public shall be
  subject to universal design by 2009/ 2019 (also
  transport and ICT?)
• The Norwegian government will present a new white
  paper on its general ICT policy this autumn. It
  is expected that this will have a chapter on
  accessibility for people with disabilities.

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Other Western Countries

• Comparative research suggests that other affluent
  countries have other ways of mixing
  redistribution and regulation, than the one(s)
  found in the Scandinavian countries.
• Some authors have even indicated that in some
  countries social regulations dominate too much,
  at the expense of public redistributive measures,
  e.g. social insurance or subsidies for mandated
  accommodation.
• Relatively strong regulations in the USA
• But at the same time much to be done to achieve
  full accessibility and usability of ICT also in
  the USA.

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EU equal opportunity policy

• disabling barriers to participation has been
  conceived as market imperfections that prevent
  the free movement of people, capital, goods and
  services.
• it has been assumed that the principle of
  meritocracy to operate effectively presupposes or
  requires equal opportunities for all.
• stereotypic images about the capacities and
  skills of people with impairments have been
  considered and presented as irrational behaviour
  in the market that prevents the achievement of a
  more competitive economy, an increased employment
  rate and productivity.
• coordinated standardisation on European and
  international level have been seen as an
  opportunity to prevent incompatible product and
  service standards, something that would generate
  barriers to the single market, international
  trade and mobility

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Standardisation in the EU

• From the mid-1980s the EU has delegated the
  technical specification of standards to the main
  European standardisation bodies,
• the European Committee for Standardisation (CEN),
  
• the European Committee for Electro-technical
  Standardization (CENELEC) and
• the European Telecommunications Standards
  Institute (ETSI).
• SDOs have since the mid 1980s often developed in
  co-operation between public authorities,
  business, the social partners and consumer
  interest associations as forms of joint
  governance.
• The technical standards are voluntary in the
  sense that producers who develop alternative
  solutions and are able to prove that they meet
  the requirements of the EU cannot be excluded
  from the market (Egan 1998, Mattli 2003).

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EU existing legislation

• Directive 1999/5/EC (RTTE)
• attributes the competence to the Commission to
  require that specific classes of radio and
  telecommunications terminal equipment shall
  support certain features in order to be usable
  for people with disabilities. (never been used?)
• Directive 2002/22/EC on universal service and
  users rights in relation to electronic
  communications networks and services
• national authorities can impose obligations on
  undertakings in order to ensure that public pay
  telephones are provided to meet the reasonable
  needs of end users, including accessibility for
  people with disabilities.
• Directive 2000/18/EC Public procurement
• Preamble to Directive 2000/78/EC equipment
  included in regulation on reasonable
  accommodation

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Focus on eInclusion in the EU

• 1996 conference on ICT standardisation and
  disability in Amsterdam.
• 1998 the EU commissioned an independent report on
  DFA and business practice (TAP 1998).
• December 1999 the European Commission launched
  the initiative eEurope An Information Society
  for All.
• June 2000 a more detailed action plan was
  approved. This included an action to publish DFA
  standards for accessibility in ICT products. The
  activities included the development of DFA
  guidelines to be used by ESOs in all
  standardisation work.
• 2001 the Council adopted a resolution on
  e-inclusion (OJ C 292 of 18.10.2001)
• 2002 resolution stating that Member States should
  improve their efforts to implement the WAI
  standards (OJ C 86 of 10.04.2002).

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Focus on eInclusion in the EU II

• The Commission Communication "Challenges for the
  European Information Society beyond 2005 COM
  (2004) 757 final
• The eEurope 2005 Action Plan moved accessibility
  for all into a wider e-Inclusion horizontal
  action.
• This mainstreaming requires that accessibility is
  considered as an issue in all relevant
  directives.
• eAccessibility is part of eInclusion in the third
  pillar of i2010 A European Information Society
  for growth and employment.
• The framework both promotes the development of a
  competitive digital economy and ICT as a driver
  of social inclusion.
• June 2006 Riga ICT for an Inclusive Society
  Conference
• Ministerial Declaration of 11 June 2006.

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European Union policy

• End 2005 Standardisation mandate to the ESOs in
  support of European accessibility requirements
  for public procurement of products and services
  in the ICT domain
• Accepted the mandate in March 2006. Will contract
  before end June.
• Will work for 18 months.
• Spain will serve as secretariat.
• The Commission now considers possible new
  legislation and a more consistent and
  comprehensive strategy to enforce e-Accessibility