You might have to ensure that your website is accessible under certain laws. This however depends on which part of the world you are in, the site's purpose, and several other factors.
We will now look in detail at the current state of legislation in the Ireland, after that we will look at the EU, US, and UK. You can visit the link from the WAI (Web Accessibility Initiative) site that deals with global legislation, if you do not belong to any of these areas.
Much of the following section on Irish legislation comes from the NCBI CFIT website thanks to its author, my colleague, Mark Magennis.
There have been significant positive moves in legislation and public policy relating to IT accessibility in Ireland.
The accessibility of online services is mainly covered by "The Disability Act (2005)" and it contains an explicit requirement for public sector bodies. Section 28 states:
"Where a public body communicates in electronic form with one or more persons, the head of the body shall ensure that as far as practicable, the contents of the communication are accessible to persons with a visual impairment to whom adaptive technology is available."
This is a good step towards meeting the needs of visually impaired people. Though it doesn't explicitly cover the needs of other people with different kinds of disabilities, there have been significant advances made in Ireland recently.
The National Disability Authority (NDA) has also produced a Code of Practice on Accessibility of Public Services, which explains the public sector obligation to provide accessible services. The Code has legal gravitas as it states that public websites should be reviewed to ensure they achieve Double-A conformance rating with WCAG 1.0 (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. We will discuss WCAG in greater detail later in the book.
The NDA also produced a Public Procurement Toolkit, which can be used to provide advice, guidance, and information for those looking for accessible services.
Several other acts have been passed in Ireland, which when viewed as a legislative suite, reflect some positive change. There is "The Equal Status Act (2000)", which requires all service providers to accommodate the needs of people with disabilities by making reasonable changes in what they do and how they do it—without these changes, it would be very difficult or impossible for people with disabilities to obtain these goods or services.
Although not specifically mentioned, this could in theory cover ICT-based services. This follows from the application of similar general disability legislation in Australia and the USA.
However, the Act requires only accommodations that cost a nominal amount. This rules out any but the most trivial efforts. There has never been a test case of this requirement.
The "Employment Equality Act (1998)" covers the provision of accessible technologies to employees. However, like the Equal Status Act, only accommodations that cost a nominal amount are required. There has never been a test case of this requirement.