a full service digital agency
accessibility and privacy
“Arguing that you don’t care about privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don’t care about free speech because you have nothing to say.”
– Edward Snowden
Website Accessibility and the ADA
Jason Camacho, a blind resident of Brooklyn, N.Y. sued 50 colleges over the accessibility of their websites. Northeastern University, Drexel University. Cornell, Vanderbilt, Oberlin College, Loyola University, and in GA, the Savannah College of Art and Design, Emory, the list goes on.
The 50 lawsuits, filed in November of 2019, say the colleges are in violation of the Americans With Disabilities Act. Their websites are not accessible to people with disabilities. Camacho uses a screen reader and said he experienced barriers when trying to access the colleges’ websites.
Can your business be a prime target for plaintiffs and attorneyus? Efforts now can save considerable pain and distress in the future, both in settlement costs and public relations.
What Does Compliance Look Like?
Basically, Equal Access for the following conditions:
Blindness
Color-blindness
Low vision
Deafness
Motor impairments
Cognitive impairments.
Who Determines the Guidelines
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is the leading authority on web accessibility.
Imagine, for example, that you are blind or have low vision. Navigating and reading the text on a website or mobile app is difficult or impossible without assistive technology such as screen readers (software that reads digital text aloud).
W3C’s developed the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, or WCAG, pronounced “WUH-cag”) for short.
WCAG 2.0 has three conformance levels: A (minimum accessibility), AA (addresses the major, most common accessibility issues) and AAA (the highest standard – government, finance and healthcare.)
What are the Guidelines?
1) Perceivable: Content must be availabe to view in multipeforms and be easy to see or hear regardless of disability.
2) Operable: Sites are vavigable using only the keyboard. and the user has the ability to pause scrolling information.
3) Understandable: Navigation must be consistent, instructions must be provided for all input fields, and a user must be able to confirm their financial transaction before submitting an order.
4) Robust: Content should be interpreted reliably by a wide variety of user agens, including assistive technologies.
What Attracts Litigation?
The majority of cases are caused by lack of accessibility. For instance, in the case of Netflix, deaf users couldn’t have the same viewer experience as every other individual due to lack of video captions and subtitles. Another example is Walt Disney where video and audio trailers couldn’t be turned off by the physically and visually impaired.
Lawsuits against the NBA, Winn Dixie, and others indicate that websites and apps that use inaccessible technologies are the most likely to attract litigation. Their sites prevented physically impaired individuals from accessing certain parts of, or the whole website.
How We Can Help
We can provide a complete list of violations for your developer or in-house IT department. There are 182 separate criteria. Your current development team can apply the fixes. Or…
We offer a comprehensive web accessibility implementation plan – an unparalleled solution to ensure your digital presence is both inclusive and legally compliant. The plan comes with an initial implementation cost of $850, covering services such as initial remediation, AI-powered widget integration, and litigation support. (The monthly price drops to $50 if paid annually in advance.) This upfront investment guarantees a seamless and accessible online experience for users of all abilities.
Following the initial implementation, our ongoing services have a monthly cost of $75. This monthly fee includes continuous monitoring, proactive issue resolution, and the sustained benefits of the AI-powered widget, ensuring that your website remains at the forefront of accessibility standards. By choosing Bleeding Edge, businesses not only prioritize inclusivity but also gain a cost-effective and future-proof solution to navigate the complexities of web accessibility.
More on what’s included…
Ongoing Maintenance and Remediation
Bleeding Edge provides continuous monitoring and proactive remediation of accessibility issues. This approach ensures that your website remains compliant with evolving standards and regulations.
AI-Powered Widget
We’ll implement an innovative AI-powered widget that enhances user experience for individuals with disabilities. The widget activates only when turned on via an interface or a screen reader if the user is blind. This ensures a personalized and streamlined experience during the user’s specific session, catering to their unique accessibility needs.
Litigation Support
We recognizes the legal landscape surrounding web accessibility and provides litigation support to its clients. In the event of legal challenges, the company offers expertise and assistance to navigate the complexities of accessibility-related lawsuits.
As many as 20% of a websites users may have a disability that effects website interactions. There are 15.5 million estimated potential customers with sight/hearing impairments in the U.S. alone.
Good news: Making sites ADA compliant also increases page rank and page speed. Page views typically increase by 100 to 150% after coming into compliance.
Website Privacy: CCPA and GDPR
CCPA stands for the California Consumer Protection Act. It is a data privacy and protection act that follows in the footsteps of EU’s General Data Protection Act that was implemented in May, 2018.
The two laws are similar and there is significant crossover, but there are important differences.
GDPR Basic Requirements
• Cookie policy and Consent Banner
• Privacy policy
• Processing agreement
• Option to view the data collected
• The promise of sending data within one month of the request
• Ability to block cookies
• SSL connection
CCPA Basic Requirements
(The CCPA is more comprehensive in some areas and less stringent in others.)
- Cookie consent banner
- Privacy policy with links to the opt-out facility, privacy policy, and Do Not Sell My Information Page
- Age verification
- Do not sell my information document
- Processing agreement (including all service providers or processors)
- SSL connection
CCPA Additional Requirements
- Upgrade your WordPress to the latest version.
- Update your privacy policy. Mention what kind of information you will take from consumers. This usually includes Google Analytics, Adwords, Push notifications, heatmaps, shopping carts, Cloudflare or CDN services, etc.
- Add consent checkboxes in your contact forms. Almost all contact form plug-ins have this option available.
- Make sure your newsletter subscription form also has a consent checkbox.
- Consent to collect, store, or sell customer data sources through WooCommerce. This plug-in has built-in privacy features.
- Provide a cookie notice. You will need to disclose your cookies and include the banner on all pages. It should pop up on the first page the user visits.
- Ensure users can easily request access to or erasure of personal data through accessible forms.
Finally, all websites should have a system in place to notify users of any changes in privacy policy and to send out notification for data breaches. If your website doesn’t have this system in place and there’s a delay in conveying the information, you can face trouble.
Penalties: CCPA $2,500 for a non-intentional violation to $7,500 for an intentional violation and $750 per affected user
GDPR: GDPR maximum penalty is 4% of global annual turnover or €20 million – whichever is higher
Penalties can be staggering amounts. For example, $99 Million for Marriott Hotels and 50 million euros against the GOOGLE LLC for lack of transparency, unsatisfactory information and lack of valid consent for the personalization of advertisement.
Questions?
You may have several questions regarding the CCPA, GDPR, and website compliance.
1) How do I make my website compliant?
2) Does our privacy policy meet the requirements?
3) Do we have evidence of valid consent?
4) Can users opt out of selling personal information?
5) Can users contact you regarding their personal information?
6) Are we even affected by CCPA or GDPR?
Good news: Other than avoiding fines and penalties, being in compliance is very customer-centric. Privacy has become a huge concern online and being proactive in protecting your customers’ and clients’ data is an important part of stellar customer service.