Accessibility to ICTs

• Given the growing proliferation of devices in our lives, it is vital that persons with disabilities (PwDs) and persons with specific needs can fully access Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and the opportunities they provide in their own right. Digital accessibility is key to ensuring respect for everyone's right to be able to participate in an interconnected world, as it enables digital inclusion and inclusive discourse for all people – regardless of age, gender, ability, or location.
• Common examples of accessibility features include: voice-to-text conversion (captioning), automated sub-titles and sign language for the deaf or hard of hearing and expandable font sizes.
• ICTs also offer hope for improving quality of life and social inclusion for Persons with Disabilities now and in the future, including: brain-to-machine interfaces, self-directed mobility aids and autonomous cars.
• The World Bank estimates that one billion people suffer from some sort of disability. By 2030, the number of senior citizens aged 60 and above who face age-related disabilities is expected to reach 1.4 billion, rising to 2.1 billion by 2050^[1]. Moreover, over 1 billion youth are in danger of experiencing some form of hearing loss due to their unsafe listening habits^[2]. Given these figures, within thirty years, half of the world's population could be affected by some form of disability.
• ​Persons with Disabilities can suffer from a wide range of conditions, from congenital conditions to specialized needs brought about by rare diseases, injuries inflicted though accident or illness, impairments to sensory or perception loss or age-related illnesses. Private companies may not voluntarily include accessibility features in their products and services, so there is a strong role for Government policy to ensure accessibility of services, as well as technical standards to ensure accessibility is taken into account in the design of technological products and services.​
  

An estimated one billion persons live with disabilities, of which 80% live in developing nations, where infirmity and disabilities are real drivers of exclusion and poverty. The WHO estimates that, globally, the number of people with some form of visual impairment is around 135 million, while an estimated further 40-45 million people are blind^[3], with people over 50 years old accounting for around 80% of all blind people. WHO also estimates there are 430 million persons with disabling hearing loss, some 5% of the global population^[4].  

Article 9 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (PwDs) defines ICT accessibility as an integral part of accessibility rights, on a par with transport and the physical environment^[5]. A multi-stakeholder coalition of partners including ITU and the UN Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development has stated that "no one should be excluded from using mobile phones, the Internet, televisions, computers, electronic kiosks and their myriad of applications and services including in education, political life, and cultural activities or for e-government or e-health to cite a few examples. Being excluded from ICT-enabled applications implies being shut out from the information society, as well as from accessing essential public services and the opportunity of living an independent life"^[6].   

Digital accessibility is a key priority in various global commitments related to inclusiveness, such as: the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), the 2030 Agenda, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the UN Disability Inclusion Strategy. 

Making ICTs and ICT services accessible is not just a human rights issue or a question of justice and equality of access to communications, information, and opportunities for all. ICTs can make a very real difference to the quality of life of people living with difficult or debilitating conditions or disabilities. Examples include:

• Voice-to-text conversion for the hard-of-hearing.
• Expandable font sizes or text-to-voice conversion for people with deteriorating or failing and degraded eyesight.
• Warning, space, and motion sensors for people with poor or limited sight.
• Digital libraries for deaf persons or hard of hearing.
• Global Positioning System (GPS) navigation for people with location amnesia.
• Photo albums or voice recordings for people with amnesia, dementia, or short-term memory loss, to remind them of their past and the identity of friends and relatives.
• The prospect of independent mobility via autonomous and self-driving cars for blind persons or people with poor eyesight.
• Machines to produce speech for people with e.g. motor neurone disease, who are no longer able to speak.
• Pioneering work on brain-machine interfaces for neurological patients or people experiencing permanent paralysis.

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ITU's Member States are fully committed to advancing ICT accessibility implementation in their countries and regions. The ITU Plenipotentiary Conference 2018 renewed ITU's mandate in the area of ICT accessibility, in ITU Resolution 175 (Rev. 2022) on “Telecommunication/ICT accessibility for persons with disabilities and persons with specific needs". ITU's Connect 2030 Agenda sets out the vision, goals and targets that ITU and its Member States have committed to achieve by 2023. It includes a bold target reflecting government commitment to make the ICT sector more inclusive of persons with disabilities and specific needs: 

Target 2.9: Enabling environments ensuring accessible telecommunication/ICT for persons with disabilities should be established in all countries by 2023. 

ITU has developed a series of resources to support ITU Member States in creating enabling environments ensuring accessible telecommunication/ICT for PwDs, and in building inclusive digital societies in their countries and regions. According to ITU's latest data, by 2019, 84 countries had established a regulatory framework to ensure ICT accessibility for persons with disabilities (Figure below). Regulatory frameworks can include accessibility requirements for: mobile communications; web accessibility; public procurement of accessible ICT; TV or video programming; and public ICT accessibility, as well as other areas.​

ITU's Radiocommunication Sector (ITU-R) promotes accessible wireless technological development to improve the accessibility of ICTs and to reduce the digital disabilities divide. It supports the advancement of a global disability-inclusive agenda for radiocommunication and broadcasting matters.  Examples of ITU-R's standards work of relevance for accessibility include acoustic standards for safe listening for audio, radio and TV services; guidance for reducing photosensitive epileptic seizures caused by television; making sign language available to end-users, and work on captioning methods.

ITU's Standardization Sector (ITU-T) develops international standards known as ITU-T Recommendations. Its work on accessibility started in the early 1990s with ITU-T V.18 text telephone. Since then, a number of ITU standards on accessibility have been developed within ITU-T SG16 (Lead Study Group on accessibility, by Question 26/16 on accessibility and Question 24/16 on human factors), as well as SG9 (Broadband cable and TV) and SG20 (IoT, smart cities & communities), cooperating with advocacy organizations (such as the G3ict, WFD and RNIB), other technical groups in ITU-T, D, R Study Groups and external entities including ISO/IEC JTC1 SC35 and WHO. A sample of which is found in the ITU-T ITU-T and Accessibility.

ITU's Development Sector (ITU-D) work in ICT accessibility promotes the advancement of the global disability-inclusive agenda and the development of inclusive digital communities. ITU-D helps raise awareness, build capacity and provide policy and strategy advice to ITU members. ITU-D offers direct assistance to countries, development and provision of relevant guidelines to support persons with disabilities, including the development and delivery of on-line and face-to-face trainings, toolkits, and reports. ITU-D also facilitates joint working platforms such as Study Group and regional “Accessible– ICT for ALL" knowledge development forums enabling stakeholders to share good practices and engaging in national and regional digital accessibility implementation. Finally, ITU-D is supporting members' efforts in mainstreaming digital accessibility to ensure the full and effective participation of everyone in the digital economy through a series of useful online resources. 

Examples of relevant ITU-R deliverables on accessibility include:

• ​ Recommendation ITU-R SM.1896 - “Frequency Ranges for Global or Regional Harmonization of Short-Range Devices", which includes a new harmonized band for “Telecoil Replacement Systems (TRS) for persons with hearing disabilities".
• Recommendation ITU-R M.1076 - "Wireless communication systems for persons with hearing disabilities".
• Recommendation ITU-R RS.1346 - “sharing between the Meteorological Aids Service and Medical Implant Communication Systems (MICS) operating in the mobile service in the frequency band 401-406MHz."
• Recommendation ITU-R BT.1702- “Guidance for the reduction of photosensitive epileptic seizures caused by television".
• Report ITU-R SM.2153 - “Technical and operating parameters and spectrum use for short range radiocommunication devices" for wireless applications in healthcare, such as hearing aids, guiding systems for the blind and medical implant communications systems (MICS).
• Report ITU-R BT.2448 examines methods of making sign language available to end-users.
• Report ITU-R BT.2342 examines closed captioning methods for persons hard of hearing.
• Report ITU-R BT.2207 addresses accessibility and hearing disabilities; sight impairment; aging audience; receiver user-friendliness for broadcasting services.
• Report ITU-R BT.2447 - “AI systems for programme production and exchange".

Recently approved ITU-T Recommendations and Technical Papers on accessibility include:

• Recommendation ITU-T F.780.2 (2023) “Accessibility of telehealth services"
  
• Recommendation ITU-T Y.4219 (2023) “Accessibility requirements for user interface of smart applications supporting IoT"
• Recommendation ITU-T T.701.21 (2022) “Guidance on audio description" (Twin text with ISO/IEC TS 20071-21:2015 "Information Technology – User interface component accessibility – Part 21)
• Recommendation ITU-T T.701.25 (2022) “Guidance on the audio presentation of text in videos, including captions, subtitles and other on-screen text" (Twin text with ISO/IEC TS 20071-25:2017 "Information Technology – User interface component accessibility – Part 25
• Recommendation ITU-T F.922 (2020) “Requirements of information service systems for visually impaired persons"
• Recommendation ITU-T T.701.11 (2020) “Guidance on text alternatives for images" (Twin text with ISO/IEC 20071-11:2019 "Information technology – User interface component accessibility – Part 11)
• Recommendation ITU-T Y.4211 (2020) “Accessibility requirements for smart public transportation services"
  
• Technical Report ITU-T TR.CUP (2023) “Concept of a common user profile format used to personalize audiovisual media"
• Technical Paper ITU-T FSTP-ACC-Rural (2023) “Use cases of accessibility to multimedia systems in rural and out-of-home environments"
• Technical Paper ITU-T FSTP.ACC-WebVRI (2022) - Guideline on web-based remote sign language interpretation or video remote interpretation (VRI) system (V2)
• Technical Paper ITU-T HSTP.ACC-UC (2021) "Use cases for inclusive media access services"
• Technical Paper ITU-T FSTP-ACC.ALD (2020) “Overview of assistive listening systems"
  

[1] www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/publications/pdf/ageing/WPA2017_Highlights.pdf

[2] www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/deafness-and-hearing-loss  

[3] www.who.int/news/item/09-10-2003-up-to-45-million-blind-people-globally---and-growing#:~:text=Globally%2C%20an%20estimated%2040%20to,2020%3A%20The%20Right%20to%20Sight  

[4] www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/deafness-and-hearing-loss

[5] www.un.org/development/desa/disabilities/convention-on-the-rights-of-persons-with-disabilities/article-9-accessibility.html

[6]https://broadbandcommission.org/publication/ict-and-disability-inclusive-development/ ​

Last update: July 2024​