Overview of Russian legislation in the field of web accessibility
I have repeatedly come across the opinion that the availability of public websites is enshrined in law, but at the same time private web resources are in some way not affected, however, in reality, everything is not so simple. This post is the result of trying to deal with this issue to the end and dot the i.
Article 7 of the Constitution states that "the Russian Federation is a social state whose policy is aimed at creating conditions ensuring a decent life and the free development of a person."
In accordance with Article 14 of the Federal Law No. 181-ФЗ, the state guarantees a disabled person the right to receive the necessary information.
In 2012, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, adopted by Resolution 61/106 of the UN General Assembly, entered into force in Russia, which states that Article 9 Participants take appropriate measures to ensure that persons with disabilities have equal access with others to the physical environment, to transport, to information and communications, including information and communication technologies and systems.
Thus, it is safe to say that sites, at least government resources, should be fully accessible to users with any form of restrictions, but this is not entirely true.
In the legal field of the Russian Federation, the concept of accessibility of a site (Internet resource) and the corresponding criteria for its availability are determined by the national standard of the Russian Federation GOST R 52872-2012 enacted 2014-01-01.
In many ways, this standard is similar to WCAG 2.0, which, in fact, served as a prototype, it also has 3 levels of accessibility: A, AA, AAA and also 4 principles: perception, reliability, manageability and clarity, however, there are differences, and one of the most significant is already hidden in its title: “Internet resources. Accessibility requirements for the visually impaired ”, that is, it somewhat narrows down the target group of users for whom the Internet resource corresponding to this guest will be available, limiting it to the visually impaired.
GOST defines a certain set of requirements that a site must meet, however, it is approved for voluntary use and may be mandatory only if there is some regulatory document that indicates this directly.
The most common and comprehensive such document, which does not consider local regulations relevant only for a particular organization or a specific region, is: Order of the Ministry of Communications and Mass Communications of the Russian Federation of 30.11.2015 N 483 “On the establishment of the Procedure for ensuring accessibility conditions for people with disabilities to the view of the official websites of the federal government bodies, government bodies of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation and local governments in the network ”.
As the Decree’s title suggests, it establishes a procedure for ensuring the availability of only websites of government bodies, that is, it does not refer to web resources, for example, private companies.
Despite the fact that the Decree was registered with the Ministry of Justice on February 1, 2016, that is, approximately 2 years after GOST R 52872-2012 entered into force, GOST itself is not mentioned in the Decree itself, and the requirements for accessibility of the resource are written in document. The list of these requirements is very meager and lies in the fact that the state. The site should have a special version for the visually impaired, which provides the ability to change the font size, the pictures have alt texts, and instead of PDF documents there are text alternatives.
It is obvious that the measures listed are not enough to make the site truly accessible, for this reason, on 11.03.2016, the company has set up the following standards: “ON APPROVAL OF RECOMMENDATIONS FOR INCREASING THE EFFICIENCY TO ENABLE THE OWNERS OF ACCESSIBLE TO THE DISABLED BY OPERATIONAL MANAGEMENT OF THE DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITIES OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION SUBJECTS AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT BODIES ON THE INTERNET NETWORK.
In this document, it is recommended to indicate in the technical specification that the site must comply not only with the GOST accessibility standard, but also even with WCAG 2.0 itself, however, both the title of the Order and the text contain the words “recommendations”, “recommended”, which is unequivocal indicates that these requirements are not binding, this is confirmed by the absence of references to this order in court decisions on claims against the administrations of various municipalities with requirements to make their website accessible.
And there are a lot of such court decisions, starting approximately from the end of 2015, the prosecutor’s office has actively filed suits in the courts against various organizations, not only such as the Administration of the Toropetsky District of the Tver Region or the Chikanskaya Secondary School, but also to ordinary commercial enterprises, for example, Angara Airlines .
In the absolute majority of cases, the defendants in such cases voluntarily admit the requirements of the prosecutor's office and undertake to bring the site into compliance with the GOST, since the list of criteria for claims is standardly limited to two points:
In some cases, the defendant, mainly when the defendant is a commercial enterprise, tries to object and say, for example, that:
The Russian regulatory framework clearly enough states that people with disabilities should be able to fully use information and telecommunications networks, should have full and free access to all services and any public information. There is a GOST, which is tracing paper with WCAG 2.0, which defines the accessibility of a site and provides the criteria for this accessibility, but there is not a single federal regulatory act that would directly indicate that certain specific groups of sites must necessarily comply with the GOST.
However, despite the lack of clear guidance, the courts invariably side with the prosecutor’s office when it tries to force various organizations to make their website accessible by allowing scaling to change. Unfortunately, at the moment it remains unclear what the court will decide if the claimant goes far beyond this formal function in his requirements and will require actual compliance with GOST.
Article 7 of the Constitution states that "the Russian Federation is a social state whose policy is aimed at creating conditions ensuring a decent life and the free development of a person."
In accordance with Article 14 of the Federal Law No. 181-ФЗ, the state guarantees a disabled person the right to receive the necessary information.
In 2012, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, adopted by Resolution 61/106 of the UN General Assembly, entered into force in Russia, which states that Article 9 Participants take appropriate measures to ensure that persons with disabilities have equal access with others to the physical environment, to transport, to information and communications, including information and communication technologies and systems.
Thus, it is safe to say that sites, at least government resources, should be fully accessible to users with any form of restrictions, but this is not entirely true.
In the legal field of the Russian Federation, the concept of accessibility of a site (Internet resource) and the corresponding criteria for its availability are determined by the national standard of the Russian Federation GOST R 52872-2012 enacted 2014-01-01.
In many ways, this standard is similar to WCAG 2.0, which, in fact, served as a prototype, it also has 3 levels of accessibility: A, AA, AAA and also 4 principles: perception, reliability, manageability and clarity, however, there are differences, and one of the most significant is already hidden in its title: “Internet resources. Accessibility requirements for the visually impaired ”, that is, it somewhat narrows down the target group of users for whom the Internet resource corresponding to this guest will be available, limiting it to the visually impaired.
GOST defines a certain set of requirements that a site must meet, however, it is approved for voluntary use and may be mandatory only if there is some regulatory document that indicates this directly.
The most common and comprehensive such document, which does not consider local regulations relevant only for a particular organization or a specific region, is: Order of the Ministry of Communications and Mass Communications of the Russian Federation of 30.11.2015 N 483 “On the establishment of the Procedure for ensuring accessibility conditions for people with disabilities to the view of the official websites of the federal government bodies, government bodies of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation and local governments in the network ”.
As the Decree’s title suggests, it establishes a procedure for ensuring the availability of only websites of government bodies, that is, it does not refer to web resources, for example, private companies.
Despite the fact that the Decree was registered with the Ministry of Justice on February 1, 2016, that is, approximately 2 years after GOST R 52872-2012 entered into force, GOST itself is not mentioned in the Decree itself, and the requirements for accessibility of the resource are written in document. The list of these requirements is very meager and lies in the fact that the state. The site should have a special version for the visually impaired, which provides the ability to change the font size, the pictures have alt texts, and instead of PDF documents there are text alternatives.
It is obvious that the measures listed are not enough to make the site truly accessible, for this reason, on 11.03.2016, the company has set up the following standards: “ON APPROVAL OF RECOMMENDATIONS FOR INCREASING THE EFFICIENCY TO ENABLE THE OWNERS OF ACCESSIBLE TO THE DISABLED BY OPERATIONAL MANAGEMENT OF THE DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITIES OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION SUBJECTS AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT BODIES ON THE INTERNET NETWORK.
In this document, it is recommended to indicate in the technical specification that the site must comply not only with the GOST accessibility standard, but also even with WCAG 2.0 itself, however, both the title of the Order and the text contain the words “recommendations”, “recommended”, which is unequivocal indicates that these requirements are not binding, this is confirmed by the absence of references to this order in court decisions on claims against the administrations of various municipalities with requirements to make their website accessible.
And there are a lot of such court decisions, starting approximately from the end of 2015, the prosecutor’s office has actively filed suits in the courts against various organizations, not only such as the Administration of the Toropetsky District of the Tver Region or the Chikanskaya Secondary School, but also to ordinary commercial enterprises, for example, Angara Airlines .
In the absolute majority of cases, the defendants in such cases voluntarily admit the requirements of the prosecutor's office and undertake to bring the site into compliance with the GOST, since the list of criteria for claims is standardly limited to two points:
- Link leading to a special version of the site for the visually impaired;
- The ability to scale (increase and decrease) the font and interface elements of the official site).
In some cases, the defendant, mainly when the defendant is a commercial enterprise, tries to object and say, for example, that:
“GOST approved for voluntary use and is not binding”the court rejects this argument, arguing that:
it is not consistent and cannot serve as a basis for refusing to satisfy the claim, since the requirements of the law on the need to ensure the unhindered access of persons with disabilities to information are imperative and must be strictly enforced throughout the entire territory of the Russian Federation.
Summary
The Russian regulatory framework clearly enough states that people with disabilities should be able to fully use information and telecommunications networks, should have full and free access to all services and any public information. There is a GOST, which is tracing paper with WCAG 2.0, which defines the accessibility of a site and provides the criteria for this accessibility, but there is not a single federal regulatory act that would directly indicate that certain specific groups of sites must necessarily comply with the GOST.
However, despite the lack of clear guidance, the courts invariably side with the prosecutor’s office when it tries to force various organizations to make their website accessible by allowing scaling to change. Unfortunately, at the moment it remains unclear what the court will decide if the claimant goes far beyond this formal function in his requirements and will require actual compliance with GOST.