Accessibility to ICTs

• ​Given the growing proliferation of devices in our lives, it is vital that persons with disabilities (PwDs) or rare diseases 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, 1.1 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 visual impairments is around 285 million, of whom 39 million are blind, with people over 50 years old accounting for 82% of all blind people^[3​]. WHO also estimates there are 466 million persons with disabling hearing loss, some 6.1% 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].  

Furthermore, digital accessibility is recognized as 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.

​Some neurological problems that people experience—including some types of memory loss, depression, blindness, and seizures, to name a few—are the result of erratic or absent electrical signals in parts of the brain. Various research projects are underway on brain-machine interfaces.

The ITU Plenipotentiary Conference 2018 renewed ITU's mandate in the area of ICT accessibility, in ITU Resolution 175 (Rev. 2018) on “Telecommunication/ICT accessibility for persons with disabilities and persons with specific needs". It also approved the Connect 2030 Agenda, which sets out the vision, goals and targets that ITU and its Member States have committed to achieve by 2023. All three ITU Sectors have approved specific resolutions on accessibility at their respective Conferences^[7]. 

ITU's Member States are fully committed to advancing ICT accessibility implementation in their countries and regions. The Connect 2030 Agenda includes a bold target directed at cultivating government commitment to make the ICT sector  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.
​ Source: ITU Annual Report on the Strategic Plan 2019, page 42, available at: https://www.itu.int/en/council/planning/Documents/Annual-report-2019-E.pdf​

ITU's Radiocommunication Sector (ITU-R) promotes accesible 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 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 system s 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."
• The technical criteria for high-quality comfortable images in broadcasting.
• 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".

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, Question 26/16 on accessibility and Question 24/16 on human factors and cooperated with advocacy organizations (such as the G3ict, WFD and RNIB), in addition to other technical groups such as ITU-T, D, R Study Groups and ISO/IEC JTC1 SC35. A sample of which is found in the ITU-T Accessibility and Standardization. 

Recently approved ITU-T Recommendations on accessibility include:

• ​ ITU-T F.791 (08/2018) provides accessibility terminology and terms with definitions harmonized with UN CRPD definitions.
• ITU-T F.921 (08/2018) des​cribes how audio-based network navigation systems can be designed to ensure that they are inclusive and meet the needs of persons with visual impairments.
• ITU-T F.930 (03/2018)  describes functional description of four common types of relay services in use today: text relay; video relay; captioned telephone service relay; speech-to-speech relay.
• ITU-T H.702 (11/2015) defines the basic functions of accessibility services on IPTV.
• H.871(07/2019)  provides characteristics of Personal Sound Amplifiers and suggests ways of informing consumers about the potential unacceptable noise levels when using these devices for prolonged periods of time.
• ITU-T Y.4204 (02/19) (ITU-T SG20) provides accessibility requirements for the Internet of Things (IoT) applications and services.
   

ITU-T also produces various Technical Papers on accessibility:  

• FSTP-ACC-RCS (2018) provides introduction to remote captioning services, with background, technical, security and quality aspects.
• FSTP-ACC-RemPart (2015) provides guidelines to ensure that remote participation in meetings is accessible for persons with disabilities.
• FSTP-TACL (2006) provides checklist to ensure accessibility of specified services and features from the beginning of standards development process.

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ITU's Development Sector (ITU-D) work in ICT accessibility supports the advancement of the global disability-inclusive agenda and the development of inc lusive digital communities. ITU-D helps raise awareness, build capacity and provide policy and strategy advice to ITU members. ITU-D has helped countries by implementing regional initiatives and activities linked to ICT accessibility in the Africa, Americas, Arab, Asia and Pacific European and CIS regions, through direct assistance to countries, development and provision of relevant guidelines, development and delivery of on-line and face-to-face trainings, toolkits,  and reports, and by facilitating 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 by developing and making available a series of useful resources.​​

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

[2] http://www.who.int/pbd/deafness/activities/MLS/en/

[3] https://www.who.int/blindness/publications/globaldata/en/

[4] https://www.who.int/deafness/estima​tes/en/

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

[6] https://broadbandcommission.org/Documents/publications/The%20ICT%20Opportunity%20for%20a%20Disability_Inclusive%20Development%​20Framework.pdf

[7] ITU-R Resolution 67-1 governs “Telecommunication/ICT accessibility for persons with disabilities and persons with specific needs". 
https://www.itu.int/pub/R-RES-R.67-1-2019

 ITU-T World Telecommunication Standardization Assembly (WTSA) Resolution 70 (Rev. Hammamet, 2016) addresses “Telecommunication/ICT accessibility for persons with disabilities". 
https://www.itu.int/pub/T-RES-T.70-2016

ITU-D World Telecommunication Development Conference (WTDC) Resolution 58 (Rev​. 2017) covers “Telecommunication/ICT accessibility for persons with disabilities and persons with specific needs".
https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Conferences/WTDC/WTDC17/Documents/WTDC17_final_report_en.pdf#page=481