German legislation
- BGG Act on Equal Opportunities for People with Disabilities in Germany of May 2002. The core content of the law is the equality of those affected in all areas of our society.
- BITV 2.0: Barrier Information Technology Ordinance 2.0 based on the WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guideline) The BITV 2.0 applies to all public bodies of the federal government, whereby not only federal administration institutions are affected, but also bodies that have to apply public procurement law and are attributable to the federal government. According to BITV 2.0, websites, mobile applications and electronically supported administrative processes as well as graphical program interfaces that are integrated into these offers, applications and services or are provided for use by the public bodies must be designed to be accessible. he regulation excludes content on websites and in apps from accessibility design for which the EU Websites Directive has permitted exceptions, for example digital archives whose content is not required for active administrative procedures or websites and mobile applications of a federal broadcasting corporation.
European legislation
On December 2, 2016, a decision was made on the EU directive that determines the accessibility of websites and mobile applications of public bodies. This obliges public bodies throughout the EU, i.e. administrations, but also courts, police stations and universities, to have accessible websites and applications.
This means that accessibility will also become mandatory at municipal level in Germany in the future.
Newly developed websites must be accessible by the end of 2019, existing websites by the end of 2020. The requirements for websites and applications are based on the basic principles of WCAG 2.0, the Web Content Accessibility Guideline.
The application of this directive will be reviewed by the European Commission at the end of 2022. The results of these reviews will then be published in an accessible format.
Planned legal regulations
A proposal for a directive by the European Commission also aims to oblige private companies to provide accessibility in future. This will then also apply to products and services, especially natural e-commerce.
- The first proposal for a directive was published on 2.12.2015
- Trialogue negotiations have been underway before the European Court of Justice since the beginning of March 2018
Outlook
It is assumed that the proposed directive will soon come into force. Sooner or later, there will be a regulation that prescribes accessibility on the Internet for all websites to a certain extent. Dealing with the issue at an early stage can prevent problems later on.