hello everyone and welcome to today's webinar it's just gone 1 pm UK time so I'm just going to give everyone a chance to join do feel free to drop in to the Q&A box and say hi um we've disabled the chat feature as we've discovered it can cause problems for some people using screen readers so just going to make a start now so hi everyone and Welcome to our webinar the Eur European accessibility act one year to go are you ready I'm Emma wheeler marketing manager here at ability net um and today we have the pleasure of being joined by my colleague via who is the accessibility and usability consultant at ability net and she will be leading today's fireside chats with two great panelists um before we get started I'll just run through a a few bits of housekeeping um today we're going to be joined by my CeX um and they'll be providing live capture you can turn on the captions using the CC option in the control panel additionally captions are also available via stream text.net player question mark event equals ability net um also the St the slides and transcript and recording of This webinar will be available in a couple of days time on our website um the web page is ability.org weinar - ea- webinar if you have any technical issues and you need to leave early don't worry you'll receive an email in a couple of days time with the recording transcripts and slides um and also depending on how you joined the webinar you'll find a Q&A window if you want to ask our panelists any questions do drop those into the Q&A area for them to address online after the webinar also please feel free to leave feedback in the post webinar survey so I'll start with a little bit about ability net now our vision is a digital world accessible to all to help achieve this um this goal our our specialist Services we offer to organizations are to help them build more accessible and inclusive workplaces websites and apps so we're going to start today's session with a video recording we did two weeks ago with Christopher patau head of accessibility and digital inclusion at Google so I my my name is Christopher and I am the the head of AIA accessibility and disability inclusion for Google I moved to to the UK in 2021 because of the European accessibility act um in mid 2020 I realized that we weren't paying attention and we probably should so I pitched my job to come to Europe to to get us ready so I guess number one advice is talk to your legal team so you can be clear what their definition their meaning the EU what the EU definition of product is is because it might be different than yours and I've been surprised a couple of times I had a more inclusive view of what I thought was influenced and impacted and I've been I've been corrected several times because my definition was different than that what was in the documentation um everyone had heard of it the interesting question is um the ROI question how bad is it really um and and and it's a reasonable question when you're talking to that that middle manager layer who is making the decisions of this feature over that feature this bug over that bug they decide what gets done so you need to be able to have an answer of what's the risk what's the likeliness of the risk was the severity of the risk and you need to do that in conjunction with your legal team because we we the accessibility professionals want it to be everything to be everything realistically that can't happen so you need to to to walk that prioritization process carefully and thoughtfully so again this is why you want to partner with your legal team but also you want to make sure that you focus with the people that understand the laws in these different member states because the Declaration is not everything and also if I may so many of us are so used to just talking about W KAG well the 30549 standard is a completely different standard and you need to find where those gaps are for your product you may be 100% well no one's 100% you may be AAA compliant in 2.1 it doesn't mean you're going to be compliant in terms of Ian 30 and 549 so there's work to do there in terms of understanding the gaps between what your product is even if you're killing it in terms of wag there may be things that you have to think about especially if you have these broader products um that that might be important yeah I'm lucky that we've been on this accessibility Journey for many years so everybody that comes in is trained about accessibility they have an understanding they know the nouns the verbs the expectations we have corporate wide expectations for many of our products so it's it's just the language of accessibility is understood and known um what we need to do is anytime there's new legislation whether it's in the US or the UK or the EU we need to to make sure that they're aware of it with enough time to be able to react to it because W KAG is is is of and turning this new legislation coming in around the world this is a process that we've built but this is just a bit more intense because it's so Broad and so many spaces and an example though our Hardware team they've been dealing with the c markings forever they just said okay tell me what's the new stuff we need to keep track of we'll make and we'll just do it because this is what we do so for some teams it could be just as as usual just with a couple a couple new things I have to track other teams it can be a completely new way of thinking about how to do things because of some feature that they Connect into European accessibility act I'm sort of making this but I think you know what I'm trying to go so it'll be easier for some than for others what what the legislation doing is is giving us an easier story to tell it makes us it makes it easier for for us to say why it's important because leg legislation's coming um in in the US they have the America with Disabilities Act and it's not particularly well enforced some of the rules don't have any teeth so rules without teeth are useless here we see 17 different mouths with different kinds of teeth we don't know whose teeth are going to be the sharpest or which teeth have have the most bite so we have this interesting opportunity that they're paying attention seems know that they have these this additional work that they have to do so now we can lean on them and help them be successful there there's the opportunity to lose the right to sell your product in the country and and some of these country in in EU are are big France and Germany Spain Italy these these aren't small countries and losing the right to sell product would would have a business impact and that matters but just because say Kenya has en 301509 as its standard they're not really enforcing it yet so work that we're doing here for Europe is also going to actually make it easy for us to do work in Africa in the future and other countries as they cada just take took I 31549 as their standard so work that we're doing here for the EU is going to make our lives easier in the future because of this the standardization come in with the lawyers with an understanding of of what what it means have the conversation of yes you're impacted and then ask to do the scoping exercise you're not asking them to fix it you're asking them to tell okay let's see how much work we have to actually do that's a really great place to start because you've already got them agreeing with you they they know it's a risk and they want to know more they can't commit to anything until they know they have to do if you can leave that meeting with a commitment to do a scoping exercise you you've done a really good job let me explain to you how we're doing this inside Google at a high level so we have essential accessibility team and we're the ones that sort of set the strategy set the definitions help with training we are the ones that that are sort of driving the overall analysis and that we partner with each of the different product teams across across Google and help them make the decisions in terms of what's important what's at risk and and help them make their own decisions we are focusing more with legal teams accessibility analysts experts in experts in terms of of of statutes and standards and things like that so to create a common understanding of what we think these things mean and then we'll share that across the company and each team will have their own of designers and engineers and their own accessibility experts and their own councel to interpret what we're providing for them to apply towards their needs so depends on where you are in this this circle of of work someone needs to provide a Common Language but then it's up to each team to consume it and see how relevant it is to what they're building so thank you very much for sharing all of that with us today Christopher oh my much Mark thank you thank you so um I'm now going to pass over to viia um for the fireside chat thank you Emma so today we are joined by our two panelists Susanna Lauren H she is the managing director and chair at funka Foundation a not for-profit independent organization that carries out research to support inclusion and accessibility for persons of all abilities based in Sweden and Sabine Ling director for communications at mobile and wireless forum and International Association of companies with an interest in Mobile and Wireless Communications based in Belgium so welcome both um I'm going to start our chat by mentioning that in 2022 27% of the EU population over the age of 16 had some form of disability according to eurostat estimates this equals to 101 million people or to make it a little bit more understandable one in four adults in the in the EU so with a view to make various products and services more accessible for older people and people with disabilities the EU adopted two directives in order to establish common accessibility standards the public sector web accessibility directive in 2016 defining standards to make digital products and services more accessible to all users and the European accessibility act in 2019 defining minimum accessibility requirements for key products and services 26 of the 27 member states have now Incorporated the second directive the EAA H which is what our discussion today is about into their National laws ready to be enforced from June 28 2025 we've heard from Christopher about what is happening in preparation for this at Google so my first question to you Susanna is in the year leading up to the directives enforcement what steps should businesses take to ensure they can demonstrate compli on June the 28th 2025 thank you VI H that's kind of a big question I think and we don't have the whole week to answer but uh I think it really depends on how two things mainly how large the organization is of course what you're doing but I think the size really matters here and also what you have done before but if you are new to this or rather new to this or a little bit worried about the legislation I would say start with looking at where you are you need to do some kind of state-of-the-art what competences do we have in house where are we do we know if we are accessible do we have the right suppliers and all of that in order to move in any direction you need to know where you are at the map so I would start looking kind of at my toes or internally where are we right now that would be the first step and then I hope that people don't only start moving on this because there is a legislation coming up I hope they're moving on this because it's a really smart thing to do not only to be nice to people but really for quality assurance for I mean to the essence of this legislation is to maximize the foreseeable use and I think that is such a nice DEC uh definition of accessibility because this is what it's all about so instead of say oh no we need to follow this regulation why is some somebody doing this bad thing to me think think of it as as an opportunity as as Christopher also said that this is this is really a way to harmonize and make sure we all have the same rules so it will be a fair play ground for all organizations and and now soon we have the the common standards so if we follow that that's also kind of a good help for the organizations so first looking at where you are and then using the voluntary standards to move in the right direction and hopefully ending up somewhere where your product or service has become better for people instead of just compliant thank you and uh Sabine when it comes to the information and communication technology shortened as known as ICT H and the mobile phone industry as well what other the industries concerns regarding the EAA and how are businesses preparing for it yes thank you via so first of I we prepared a few slides maybe that would be a good point where Kelly can bring them up so we actually did what Susanna suggested we looked at where we stand right now uh just as a short explanation on who we are um I work for the mobile and wireless forum and we are the International Association of the device manufacturers so our members are the big companies like apple Google Samsung LG Sony the ones really um manufacturing the devices and as Christopher mentioned in his video talk we are lucky that already 15 20 years ago our companies have started on the journey so we have come a long way but still as sna mentioned we did need to do our homework and look at where we actually stand right now uh in relation to the requirements under the Europe accessibility act and so how did we do this we looked at all the requirements in the annex one of the European accessibility act but we have outlined the things that our products and services need to fulfill because it's a market access directive so they need to fulfill it so that we are still allowed to sell them to put them on the market in the you a really big deal as Christopher mentioned also so we looked at those requirements and then we looked at the one standard that we currently have which is the I 301509 the standard for public procurement of accessible ICT and we looked at the features that we actually have in our devices already and a good overview for that is the GU database so that's an online repository where you can get a good understanding of all the accessibility features we already have in our devices and we looked at what's required what do we have in the standard and what is in the device today and if you go to the next slide that takes the form of breaking it down and making it understandable what the requirement means in practice if you switch to the next slide let's look if it works ah doesn't see seem to work doesn't matter so we looked ah here it is thank you very much so we looked for example at the requirement the device needs to be or it has to be able to be used without Vision that sounds great for everyone who works in accessibility for the end consumer maybe not so clear what that means so in the device today if we have a screen reader if we have text to speech capability if we have a personal assistant if we have all those features we can consider that we can use the device without Vision then usage with limited Vision if you have a look at the screen you can see there are 11 features listed and these are just examples that doesn't mean that there are not more features but we just look at all the features that we consider as the minimum to be able to fulfill the requirement and if you switch to the next slide we did the same exercise for hearing so usage without hearing almost 10 features usage with limited hearing little bit less uh but eight or seven features and we did that for every single requirement just to visualize what the requirement under the EA means and what we have in the device today but why you asked me about our open questions um there are indeed a few because we have the requirements we have the standard that is available but in the standard we have a few gaps so for example real time text uh total total conversation capability the requirements for non-digital information to be accessible so these are not deal breakers because I would say 90% are clear 90% we have the answers we know what to do to implement but the last 10% approximatively we have open questions and I know that Susanna is very very hard working with the standards committees to bring us the answers but they will be a little bit late and you also need to factor in that the device manufacturers need about 18 months to implement a technical change so given that the deadline is now in less than a year and the standards are not there yet we know there will be a little bit of delay but again we we are preparing uh there's a lot that we can already do and the answers then will come on the way and we hope that you know until we have the answers that we get a little bit of leeway to the final implementation fantastic thank you so much and um both of you have kind of highlighted the importance of kind of finding for businesses to find where they are on the map as you said Susanna um and if they want to actually find the directions to the destination um where would you say that businesses can go to find these directions guidance on working towards the European accessibility act uh compliance um Sabine would you like to take this first sure I get started and then I hand over the tricky part to Suzanna to complete okay so the first thing I mean the easiest step would be look at the technology that you already use using because almost all businesses work with mobile phones with uh PCS with the online platforms and the big companies have already done a lot of the work so look at the technology you're working with and understand all the integrated accessibility there already the next point is understand where you fall into um where in the European accessibility are you affected so are you offering a service are you offering a product if you're offering a product in which of the categories are you located and then again like we did look at the requirements and just think it through what that means in practice and uh if you know if you need an inspiration because you're just starting on the journey we did the mapping of course tailored to our devices but that might be an inspiration for you that you understand okay this is the requirement this is what happens in practice right now and maybe you get then the idea of what that means for you own product for services of course the mapping is not so relevant but maybe Susanna has a good advice for the services part so thank you I need to I I usually never argue with Sabine because she's the nicest person in our industry and I don't want to say anything against her but the en31 549 started out as a procurement standard that is correct that was back in the days since many many years it's now an a standard for ICT products and ser the accessibility of ICT products and services the the procurement part of it is actually taken out of the title and and I think that's important because it's not just meant for people who do procurement so I just wanted to to say that um so it's also important to distinguish between what is in the law and what is in the standards I agree we are delayed we let us not argue about why the standards are delayed but really the the the requirements are in the law so the first thing is read the ACT it's a long document I know and one of the most tricky things uh trying not to be negative here but but it is difficult because there are General requirements and then there are requirements for products there are requirements for services and then on the third place there are specific um requirements for the specific products and services you need to read in three places that's not super easy but but the requirements are there and then the standards are volun Aries so if you need more support with how to really implement this then you can turn to the standards and even if they are not ready yet the three big ones the one on ICT um accessibility for ICT products and services the one on design for all and the one on the built environment the three ones that we are now currently revising they're already out there okay they will be updated they are not finished in their uh the last bits and pieces of the harmonization but there's still a lot of good data there so the the presentation Sabine showed where with the user requirements or functional performance statements that is from the 3014 549 the the user requirements kind of set up so so you can already start now by first looking at the requirements in the act and then if you need additional help I would turn to the standards that are already out there and and start working with them because there's a lot of good data and got good knowledge in there even if there will be some small changes it's not like we're going to rip up the whole idea of what accessibility is and write a completely new standard we're doing reviews that's going to be smaller things than I would have hoped but uh but that's what we can do so so I think there's a lot of good data out there and when it comes to uh looking a little bit uh long term um what would you say that um businesses can think in in terms of strategies that could adopt for this long-term SU sucess in meeting and uh not just meeting for the you know when the uh laws are enforced in June 20 28 in 2025 but um maintaining this um European accessibility act uh requirements are there any strategies that we could mention here for businesses um Susanna well I would absolutely recommend becoming a member of the International Association of accessibility professionals and or uh let some of your key staff be uh certified as Professionals in accessibility that's a good start and even if you are not having experts super experts that need the professional certification at least training training training building internal competence is extremely important because otherwise you will be always dependent on external suppliers and that is expensive and it's also not very sustainable so competence building in-house I think is extremely important and then also uh having the procedures or processes uh in place where one of the standards the design for all standard can really really help because that is kind of a stepwise approach on how to achieving accessibility using a design for all approach so making sure that you are hiring people with disabilities testing with people disabilities you know get involved in the community instead of just seeing this as technical requirements because it's not it's about humans so so it's really about the organizational piece and training I would say are the most important part to to succeed in the long in the long run and then try to see it as something positive I never when people people oh this is legislative they they kind of stop doing things you need to wake up in the morning and say today I'm going to do something good I'm G to make my design a little bit better for blind people I'm going to do this I'm going to do that it's have keep that energy going and see this as something positive it's about it's about making things better for all of us and soin what would you add to that all that Susan said definitely a good starting point um then I would just say the next part is just be conscious and make accessibility just the basic requirement like you said the language for the organization whether that is English or Bel lingual or anything you just also said as a precondition all we do is accessible and then of course mistakes will happen I mean they they just they happen to us as well but that's not a problem it's always uh trial and error but you need to build competence and you make it self-evident that accessibility is just something we do it's not an add-on afterwards because then it becomes complicated and tricky and expensive it just we do it and that's the way we do it and why do we do it because more and more we will have people with disabilities as employees everyone is looking for a qualified Personnel it's out there and some have disabilities and some don't but we will have them in our companies and you mentioned the impressive numbers of people with disabilities so huge Target group whether they are as employees or colleagues or as consumer they are everywhere I mean it's one in every fourth so it's absolute business sense to be accessible to build in-house competency yes I can also very much recommend the International Association of accessibility professionals although the name is huge but I AAP uh it's you know it's a professional body where you go to learn it's like everyone who starts in a new profession goes to a body to learn and I AP is a is an is a great way to do that and also to discuss the problems you know everyone runs into tricky situations where you don't know what to do but that's the professional exchange and for that it's a wonderful platform and then as a third point I would mention very importantly seek the direct exchange you don't learn English by never speaking to an English speaker you have the direct exchange again people with disabilities are a quote of our population everywhere and then ask ask the questions you know and this is not about asking for free uh user testing no this is exchanging with the people in your employeeship with the people around you with your customers it's feedback mechanism you can integrate stakeholder consultations like we do for the gar database and then ask be curious and deal with the answers that come up but I would also subscribe to Susanna also be open for the for the fun in it because we are talking about multimod communication it's really cool and also if you look at the accessibility features they're not just something to implement a regulation they're pretty sexy features in there and really cool technology so get a little bit of that excitement that we have for the pixels and the storage and whatever our devices do the accessibility features are really really cool so I invite you check them out check your own device what it can actually do and discover a little bit you know this discovery spirit and um we've heard from Christopher that businesses may lose the right to sell their products as one of the penalties for not complying with the laws that are being created uh based on the um European accessibility act but as we are looking at um this whole topic from a more positive uh kind of angle I would like to ask you what are the main benefits that the access the European accessibility act can bring to businesses and not only to businesses but also to their customers H Susanna more customers satisfied customers uh and um making it easier to sell in different markets because the we have harmonized uh rules so that you know that if you sell to one part of Europe and then you can sell to another part of Europe at least for accessibility we have the same harmonized standard and now if you are interested in selling whatever you are selling in uh in the EU you know that we now have the leading requirements so then everything else will just you know be okay as well so if you kind of look at what the EU is doing we are currently currently leading this uh competition if there is a competition in this um so that if you just just meet those requirements then everything else will be okay that's kind of easy for a company it's much harder to say here I need to comply with this and there that and I mean for a global uh organization that's horrible and it takes a lot of time and money so I think the harmonization piece is is also important and Sabine one interesting point in the European accessibility Act is the requirement for accessible information on accessibility features and I think that's a really good good good push in the right direction ction because in the past 15 years the companies have done a lot to make the the IC companies have done a lot to make the product accessible but they somehow forgot to communicate about it or only to very you know to you find the information if you know where to look but to really have the broad um coverage the mainstream know about accessibility that we haven't achieved so far and I'm hoping that the accessibility Act is really helping us to put the information on the accessibility in The prominent marketing place so that we can actually get the information to people who need it most and you know those features they help not only people who identify with having a disability it helps everyone who is a little bit older uh who has a situational disability who has a chronic illness whatever so those features are just tremendously helpful and having the more prominent marketed and the consumer and everyone else informed about it is one of the big advantages I think and when Sabine says over um a little bit older she means everyone over 35 no no over 40 counts already that's fantastic um thank you so much for all these um insights that you have sh shared with us today um before we move to the um questions from our audience is anything that you would like to add for this year just before the European accessibility act comes into Force well my favorite saying of this is really that uh I was in the same position when the web accessibility directive entered into force and one year before that entered into Force public sector were asleep they didn't move at all very few of them and then come 20 third of September 2018 they oh what is happening why didn't you tell me uh so that was a bit um frustrating I think for many people and especially when you were in the transposition uh doing policy and legislation and so on and there's so much more going on now so I see a huge move towards accessibility then will it be successful or not that remains to be seen but really companies are so much more on their toes than public sector ever was so that I think is extremely rewarding so if you feel alone you're Are Not Alone we are a big movement and there's a lot of people here out to help you uh do the right thing so just get going I think is the kind of the word for for the day I think get going let's keep that yes saine so I would say do your homework because yes there's a lot going on but you won't be able to know how to implement the EA by attending a web so read the ACT read the annexes uh and the first few pages might be painful but you know at the same time the more you read about it the more you get into the logic also take the standard 31509 you don't need to read the whole ER but you know look at the requirement in Annex one and then find the equivalent in the standard and make the first connections but you need to do the homework and then you come to the webinar and ask a pointed question you know and then you join iaap and get into the open discussion and understand how you translate it for your own product but I for all those who haven't read the EA I think summertime is a good time to do it and it won't take you the full summer you know should be a thing of two days so don't be too worried that's great I think we have you should yeah sorry but I I thank you for that Sabine I think I think it's a good place when you do the read the standard start with chapter four that's the heart of the standard because that is where you where we explain the user needs so and that's the benefit of having Suna on the call she knows it inside out I did I did read the whole young um I did read the whole thing as well and I found it actually quite the language is quite user friendly I would say it is not Poss because it is not is it because it is a an act and a directive would you would you um like to see a more uh user friendly version of it oh you're speaking about the ACT um yes about the ACT yes I don't think I should uh say anything about that considering my clients but um I'm happy you found it useful okay so um we have plenty of questions for you from our audience so let's uh start with um I can see that um um some participants are asking um about the UK specifically and what the impact of the European accessibility act will be to UK organizations do you have anything uh helpful to these UK organizations so I have no idea if the UK is planning to do anything uh because you are unfortunately you left us for a while ago as we all know but uh if you are selling products and services in scope of the directive in Europe then you are covered it doesn't matter if you're private or or not for-profit or public or whatever and it also doesn't matter if you're a manufacturer importer distributor I mean any part of the value chain if you are selling your products or services that are in scope of the directive in the EU then you are covered by the act so we don't care about you're if you're us or UK or whatever um passport you have or the company so yes M and um a very similar question is uh will EA countries such as Norway um be enforcing the EAA in their own regions as well as EU countries and what about Switzerland so Norway Iceland and lonstein the E EA it's difficult this because it's similar to the ACT but uh those countries they do um Implement directives but slightly afterwards so now Norway is implementing the web accessibility directive this year so they're they're doing their own negotiation process but they are implementing the directives but slightly um I shouldn't say slower but but after a certain delay uh Switzerland is a different Beast um we do not have any uh signs of of um implementation in Switzerland so far but it could still happen Okay and another question from um from the audience um says I work in the hospitality tourism industry in what ways does the new law impact hotels is there something specific in the in the ACT specifically for this industry well for example everything that is e-commerce so whenever you sell anything and I guess that is also booking the rooms via a website is in the EAA and if you have any kind of self-service terminal that many hotels have today on uh could be also covered depending on I mean there different parts and of course the computer computers and smartphones and I mean there are several things that could be covered as well yeah and uh when it comes to uh other products uh a question um about ebooks does the Acts definition of ebooks include PDFs that are sizable H for example they look like books or does it only apply to epub files and other ebook file types there is a specific definition of ebooks in in the act that says it's a service consisting of uh digital files that convey I think electric electric or digital version I can't remember this it's kind of 10 lines uh it doesn't say PDF is in there or PDF is not in there but there is is a specific definition of what an ebook is as it is with e-commerce and as said very clearly e-commerce is very very broad even if you have a um a business that is mainly a physical shop but then you sell just small things online then that is also e-commerce so it's very broad definitions and the ebook definition doesn't say that it has to be in one or the other format and certainly not only ePub and for clarifications of kind of definitions where could businesses um go for for clarifications uh you know is there any kind of a channel uh established where would businesses go for the definitions I would go to the act because that's yeah yeah sain have you got any other no it's the same thing so either the definition is directly written in the act or it refers you to the EU regulation that has the definition included so they they are all I mean this is a legal actor very specific specifications or definitions for every single product and service that falls under the directive H and from the questions I can see that um a lot of people are concerned about this specific kind of details for example one question is um does the EAA apply retrospectively to all content created prior to the ACT for example an ebook that was digitized 10 years ago H tricky question no it doesn't apply backwards so to speak and there are and now I need to say what Sabine said read the ACT first ask the questions then because there are also chapters that Define exactly when the kind of cut off dates are um so not for the idea of the ACT generally is to look forward but there are specific Grace periods and and cut off dates when it comes to ebooks that is a really tricky one because those are um that's really not defined they do not have any any grace period so from the 28th of of June it's actually all your ebooks that is a tough one uh and I'm sure we will see a lot of disproportionate burden claims there but but for for the others it's very clear what what they mean with archives and and you know documents that you have published before and so on all of that there are specific dates and and all of that is also defined in the ACT m and a question um is about for an international business operating in all of the regions and in the EU how do we keep on top of which countries have implemented the EAA and is there a central place for international companies to see how each region will differ in their inter interpretation of the legislation uh so first of all all the country all the EU countries need to implement it um yes there are a few slight deviations in the National transpositions um if you want to have some work you can go to the website where you have all the different where the countries have notified all the laws that they have changed or or introduced to to do the transposition international law um but per se you can just say okay the EA appli in the EU from next year onwards that is the law and then you can for very few things you can go into National deviations but like for the general requirements in Annex one they apply in the EU and that's it um for understanding globally um the the accessibility regulations developments so it depends I mean I would say I don't have an overview of everything um but there are are specialized bodies that look at web accessibility regulations worldwide you definitely again uh we as suana said I refer back to the IAP it's the professional body so that is of course the place where you have all the accessibility offices from the different countries where they also have an open Forum where you can say okay what's happening in Canada can you help me out or any other country so this is the place to ask questions there are a few there are a few mapping exercises online where they try to summarize everything around accessibility legislation in different countries they are never exhaustive you know and even if somebody does the exercise very soon it gets outdated because it's a tremendous work so just answering the perspective from an International Association we do a lot of monitoring work in house uh also about um through the the um International bodies and then also through our working groups where we have people in different countries that provide us the updates but it is probably it will involve a lot of um your own work to keep um a global overview unless Susanna has the secret to the central Source no I I don't I'm sorry I don't but I it's important I we I get this question a lot how do they differ that's not really the point uh this is a minimum harmonization directive so it applies everywhere and then then some member states may go beyond but I mean we don't have there just as saine said that there's just small deviations so it's really remember that it's the minimum requirements I would recommend IAP professional certification that is called core competencies we have a body of knowledge that is made for people who want to sit for that exam and take that exam um and the body of knowledge is free of charge you don't need to be a member uh so you can that there there is a lot of it's not I'm not saying it has everything but it's a good place to start if you want um a list of the major accessibility legislation around the world because that is what you're supposed to know if you get certified so but the but the source of that with many links uh is on the IAP website so that could be one place to start and maybe just to add on that then subscribe to three four key newsletters so one is IAP or I AP like suanna says we're talking about the same Association if people wonder so subscribe there you get the newsletter where you get at least the updates on new developments the gates initiative GA A tes has a newsletter that provides information go to the G3 ICT website they have always upto-date information and then maybe there are one or two others that don't come to mind right now but once you have subscribed to that information you know it's just like a domino you always you have that information you get the next the next the next but the important thing is don't get scared of because it's too much just start with the one two steps that are feasible and from there on again you will find your bread crumbs to follow so it's not a problem but start now subscribe now start learning now and then it will come and um another question is about the uh um extension to 2030 so the uh the question is is it true that we technically have until 2030 to become compliant with existing products and services not that I'm aware of no the answer is clear thank you and um how about um internal procurement for software does um are this actually um EAA B can you repeat we lost we lost you for a while yeah okay yes I can repeat is it um yes my internet connection is unstable so I will repeat the the question um would the the EAA apply to internal procurement for software or is it only covering external outputs with clients ah you mean btb software then I believe that's the question about yes so it's a consumer uh directive so it really depends if if I mean internal can mean many many things but B2B is not covered it's it's it's always for for consumers but if you are I mean if you're buying computers or software for your stuff I mean that is kind of internal it depends on how you how you define um but it doesn't it doesn't I mean yeah it it really depends on on the situation and what what um what sector you are in if you are covered or or not and I mean that actually if you don't develop it yourself but you're buying that's the easiest part you just include their accessibility requirements in your tender and then the others need to fulfill the requirements but in any case it would be good policy to to insist on that because again you know we have a shortage of employees there might be an employee with a disability coming in they will have to use that platform um and you know it goes on and also the accessibility legislation you know it will not I don't think it stops here I mean basically you should come on everything I do going forward needs to be accessible at some point um and again if I'm buying stuff I'm in the privileged situation that I can set as a requirement it needs to fulfill week AA or the 301509 I set the requirement they need to deliver so that should just be good policy and I don't know how the word procurement is used here if it's more like buying things or if but if it's really procurement um actually the first legislation that that happen happen under this period when the commission started to to work more um precisely with with with digital accessibility was the procurement directive updates where it's really the requirements sharpened a lot in 2017 so that was the first thing happening before the web accessibility directive and the accessibility act entered into Force so if you want support in if you would like to procure accessible then you have a good really good support in the procurement directive the way it has been updated since 17 and that is also pointing to AAA which is pointing to the standards so there's a lot of um um argument or ammunition if that is what you're doing otherwise I say I'd say in the EU at least is usually the local or national legislation that covers anti-discrimination that takes care of how you treat staff and internal systems and so on that is usually more strongly enforced within the anti-discrimination laws and a question came after you've mentioned suzan um about um all the standards other than the n301 549 um could you just give us a little um explanation of what are the standards you you were referencing there uh yes so um when the EU is um uh implementing a legislation on accessibility it uh creates mandates that is a standardization request to all the European standardization organizations to get together and and work on harmonized documents that will then be published in the official Journal which means that they act as presumed conformance which means that you can actually look at the standard to see if you are compliant or not so in the current mandate we are updating three standards we are creating three new standards and we are also updating two technical reports so blah blah blah a lot lot of things so the 301 549 my is of course the most important part of that but we're also updating the 17161 which is the design for all standard which is a procedural standard of how to use the design for all Concept in order to achieve accessibility and then it's the en 17210 which is the accessibility and usability of the built environment which may sound strange because hey the accessibility Act only covers digital yes but the member states may also uh on a volun AR basis uh opt in for adding um the built environment into the accessibility legislation as well so that is also up being updated so those were the ones I think I I mentioned before U but the three ones that we are then uh developing new are for non-digital uh information for support support services and for emergency communication and then I leave the technical reports for now because they are just informative there's a lot of information um I have a good source for this if if I may send it to people afterwards yeah that would be great thank you and um something that we get asked quite often and we have a question from um the audience what are acceptable forms of evidence to demonstrate that a business is compliant you want to take that something yeah um okay good so um usually for a market access directive the preferred way for industry is to use harmonized standards and that those are the standards that um Susanna just mentioned and they will come they will come with a little bit delay but let's just say when we have them this will be the way because harmonized standard means if I as a manufacturer can certify I comply with the standard then the regulator knows okay fine she complies with the directive there are two other ways that you can choose one is the self declaration that is a self assessment by the manufacturer who just looks at the requirements in Annex one and that's their own assessment in saying okay this is how I implemented it and I consider that this fulfills the requirement uh can be good but if you have a national regulator that challenges you on that then you need to find some proof and that might end up in a negotiation between your conviction and the conviction of the regulator so this is a little bit of a risky approach and the third way that we have to to show compliance for Market access directive is notified Labs Laboratories that is expensive and currently we don't have Labs specialized in accessibility so for the EA not really a viable option from the perspective of the big ICT companies I can tell you they all want to have the harmonized standards and we already are struggling with the little bit of delay that we have because that means we for the time being we are in a legal insecurity that said we know most of how to implement but even a little bit that we don't know exactly makes our companies nervous so harmonized standards are really usually the way to go to show compliance with a market access directive Susan do you have something to add to this I think there was a good um good explanation of this um but but I also want to stress that don't be too I agree with with Sabine standards are the kind of the secure way but if you really have an Innovative company and if you think that you can do this in a better way don't let the standard kind of be a barrier to your Innovation I mean you you you can do other things that's why they are voluntary so if you think I mean test with users and if you are convinced that this idea is much better I mean we need to to open up for that and and that is what the commission is doing uh with this with this way of of of making uh requirements so I I also want to say that there is a flexibility and there is an an innovation and of course it's the surveillance authorities in each country that will that you will have to to maybe uh convince um but there is also for products there's also the EC uh Mark that will also apply for for this so Services a little bit more fluffy as usual but for products the E the C sorry the C marking uh is also uh used for for the ACT that's great thank you so much we don't have any more time for any more questions um but as we uh Emma mentioned uh we will try and get as many h of the questions answered on our EAA blog H thank you Sabine and thank you suzan I will pass uh you back to Emma so thank you so much for um Susanna andine for that very informative session on the European accessibility act and thank you to everyone who participated as well um and as I mentioned at the beginning of the webinar any unanswered questions we hope to answer um some of them online in the next few days and you'll also receive an email with a link to access them we will also update Christopher patu's video as well as we believe um we had some issues and it was only audio today so a lot update that in the recording as well um and so yeah we hope uh today's session was very informative um and if you would like some help getting ready for the EAA our accessibility Consultants can assist you um with services like headline reviews full accessibility Audits and user testing so you could scan the QR code that's on the screen now or visit um ability.org slsp speak-- experts and if you want to begin those conversations with our Consultants um we also provide digital accessibility and inclusion training um if you use the code ability net webinar 10 you can save 10% in 2024 for our online training courses that's for individuals so visit ability.org dot trining um we also provide in-house Group Training and e-learning training um you can visit ability.com org.uk learning or scan the QR code on the screen there so thank you again via Susan saine and everyone who's joined us um please complete the feedback form that you'll be directed to and we'll be in touch with you soon bye everyone