April 25, 2005
Public procurement contracts should stipulate eAccessibility
From the EU:
Requirements to make information and communication technology (ICT) goods and services accessible to elderly and disabled people should be laid down in public procurement contracts. So say 90% of the 500 respondents (public agencies, ICT goods and service suppliers, universities, business associations and user groups) to the Commission’s January 2005 public consultation on the need for “eAccessiblity” measures (see IP/05/14). Stakeholders also say that EU institutions should take the lead in proposing these measures (88%), that ICT goods and services need to be made more fully interoperable (74%), and that technical requirements should be harmonised within and beyond the EU for this purpose (84%). It is less clear how these requirements should be enforced. Although there is clear support for some form of product certification or a “labelling” scheme (72%), stakeholders are fairly evenly divided on whether this scheme should be voluntary, mandatory, and/or rely on self-certification with checks. Commission proposals will be set out in a Communication scheduled for September 2005.
Posted by rshah at April 25, 2005 10:34 PM
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