Submission to DTI, UK on the Riga Declaration on eInclusion
humanITy Paper
Date: 26/04/2006
Article
The following is the result of informal consultations with major industry and NGO players on eInclusion in general and eAccessibility in particular:
1. eInclusion
1.1 Although it will be difficult to achieve, platform emergence is so rapid that the only viable eInclusion framework is the establishment of a generic right of all citizens to access all information in the public domain on equal terms (for details see 2.1)
1.2 If the primary motivation for eInclusion, particularly in the public sector, is to save revenue costs this is likely to be unsuccessful: poor information wastes money; good information intensifies demand and use.
1.3 The direct transference of analogue to digital material does not work; the price of increased digital uptake is simplification.
1.4 The public sector in particular should concentrate on user requirements to establish minimum performance standards rather than using money on skills development to mitigate poor design and procurement.
1.5 Platform independence is crucial in a converging ecology; different platforms can learn from each other; SMS use is likely to overtake qwerty use before 1010.
1.6 In the overall context of communications, digital switchover and access to public telephone networks is more important than internet access. What distinguishes internet access is the capacity to create, rather than simply to access and process, but creativity is a citizenship requirement only possible after access and process. The priority for many citizens is to access and react, eg voting involves a multiple choice decision but it does not require creativity.
2. eAccessibility
2.1 Disabled people need a generic platform independent right to information in the public domain on equal terms with their peers. The NGO sector spends a huge amount of resource lobbying on individual platform access, eg the EU has just finalised the right of access to public pay phones at precisely the point where these are disappearing.
2.2 There are four major implications from a generic right but which might be achieved without it through separate initiatives:
- Clear regulation on broadcasting accessibility
- More stringent application of WAI Guidelines
- Right of access to public telephone networks; and, consequently
- A reconsideration of the 1999 Terminals Directive; there is no point mandating accessible information if receiving devices are inaccessible.
3. Conclusions
3.1 There is a great deal to be learned by ICT sectors from each other; but it is likely that the locomotive for eInclusion will be TV over IP because the limitations of traditional television receivers is such that it is difficult to adapt internet material for them.
3.2 Within the EU there needs to be a single high level forum for eAccess which is part of a higher forum for eInclusion; such fora should be platform independent.