Section 508 One Year Later

On the first anniversary of the implementation of a key federal law designed to improve technology access for all persons with, and within, federal agencies, questions and concerns about the level of compliance continue to loom. Section 508 is the federal law under which federal agencies, in their development, procurement, maintenance, or use of electronic and information technologies, must give disabled employees and members of the public access to such technology that is comparable to the access available to others, or run the risk of lawsuits brought against non-compliant agencies. While Section 508 standards do not require outfitting all federal technology to facilitate access and use with every department and agency, even if they lack employees with disabilities, the standards do require technology to have the capacity to be used by all persons. Since Section 508’s implementation on June 21, 2001, the federal government has not been able to claim 100% compliance with respect to technology accessibility across all agencies and departments (Congress is not obligated to follow Section 508 standards). This is due, in part, to both continued uncertainty as to what is actually required, in addition to logistical barriers that hamper widespread compliance. The most noticeable effort to date has been the push towards implementing consistent accessibility design and practices for federal agency websites, as more information and services are delivered to the public online -- including the reported 54 million Americans with disabilities. Yet this does not necessarily include the modification of older archived content, information in multimedia or PDF formats, or design elements (such as forms, tables, and specialized formatting tags) to ensure all information on websites is usable to all visitors. Agencies are not the only party adapting to accessibility guidelines and expectations, as vendors are also attempting to navigate the Section 508 landscape. On April 25, 2001, a final rule was published regarding the intersection of federal acquisitions procedures and Section 508 guidelines. The two federal procurement councils -- the Civilian Acquisition Agency Council and the Defense Acquisition Regulations Council -- were responsible for key amendments to that rule which required agencies to follow Section 508 standards on contracts awarded and signed (not just solicitations issued) after June 25, 2001 -- even if contracts were solicited and negotiated before the standards took effect. Agencies are able to claim an exemption from this Section 508 rule before any contract is signed, however, if either "undue burden" or utilization of the technology at issue for national security functions can be demonstrated. In order to make their technology purchases as cost-effective as possible, agencies tend to acquire and utilize equipment for as long as possible, in upwards of as much as 5 years. Vendors, however, constantly develop and introduce new products, upgrades or fixes at a much faster pace, often more quickly than agencies are able to allocate funds and successfully incorporate into their operations. As new technologies become available, vendors have expressed concerns that different technologies have different accessibility standards which apply to their operation and settings in which they are used, and that some technologies, because of the multiple functions they perform, may have multiple standards which apply to them before they are even usable by one individual, much less many persons with special needs. In response, the CAAC and the DARC issued a joint June 26, 2002 request for comments through August 26, 2002, as to whether the Section 508 law needs to be modified in order to both make more explicit, and set boundaries around, what's required of the vendors supplying technology at issue to federal agencies. Proponents of an explicit standard argue that such clarification would help minimize confusion, but critics allege that it would constrain what types of technologies could be used in too narrow a context across potentially incompatible agency environments, while also locking in both agencies and vendors to inflexible solutions normally addressed through individual agency statement-of-work documents. Rather than touting success, the atmosphere around the first anniversary of Section 508's implementation appears to be one of cautious optimism that the federal government has embraced a commitment to providing a level of access with respect to technology, and is on its way to meeting the goals attendant with the longstanding expectations of the public.
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