Research & Policy

Australian government releases adoption and implementation strategy for WCAG 2.0

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Today, the Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO) released The Australian Government’s adoption and implementation of Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.0 (WCAG 2.0) as part of the Web Accessibility National Transition Strategy.

This comes after the Federal government announcement in February 2010 that it will join the international community by committing to WCAG 2.0 compliance of government websites by 2015.

Further information released today reveals that the Federal government will require all Federal, State and Territory government websites to conform to the Single A level of WCAG 2.0 by the end of 2012. All Federal government websites must conform to the Double A level of WCAG 2.0 by the end of 2015. States and Territories may elect to conform to Double or Triple A levels.

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Research & policy

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Multichannel Review legislation passed

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Yesterday, 24 June, Parliament passed the Broadcasting Legislation Amendment (Digital Television) Bill 2010 (Cth), to bring into law the recommendations of the Multichannel Review.

The Multichannel Review was conducted by the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy (DBCDE) to examine whether or not digital multichannels should be required to meet the Australian content and caption requirements of the main channels as analogue television services are progressively switched off.

The legislation means that digital multichannels will not be required to provide the same captioning requirements as on the main channels until 31 December 2012.

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Deaf or hearing impaired

Multichannels

DBCDE, Department of Broadband Communications and the Digital Economy

Research & policy

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Human Rights Commission releases submissions to the subscription television exemption application

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The Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has released submissions to the Australian Subscription Television and Radio Association’s (ASTRA) application on minimum captioning requirements. The application, if accepted, would make ASTRA exempt from complaints under section 55 of the Disability Discrimination Act (Cth) (DDA) in exchange for undertaking to increase the level of captioning on subscription television.

The AHRC has released submissions from Media Access Australia, the Deafness Council of Western Australia (DCWA), Vision Australia, the Deafness Forum of Australia, the Disability Discrimination Legal Service (Victoria) (DDLS), Deaf Australia and Accessible Arts NSW. To read the submission, go to the AHRC website.

To read summaries of these submissions, visit our enquiries and consultations section.

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Australian policy and legislation

AHRC, Australian Human Rights Commission

Deaf or hearing impaired

ASTRA, Australia Subscription Television and Radio Association

Research & policy

Subscription TV

Temporary exemption application

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New cinema access system moves to development phase

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SightCine, a Los Angeles based start-up company, has secured development funding to create a prototype of its caption glasses concept. The idea is that the captions are displayed on the screen but are only visible to people wearing the glasses.

There is not much detail in exactly how the glasses work, but other systems using glasses have been developed before. In February 2007 an emerging technologies demonstration was showcased at a cinema in Washington DC. This was reported in Winter 2007 issue of The Media Access Report (“R&D For Cinema Captioning Systems”, p16).

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