For people with disabilities, independently managing government affairs, healthcare, education and banking matters digitally is still often difficult or even impossible. For example, people cannot access information because movies do not have subtitles, cannot fill out a form because a site cannot be used without a mouse, and cannot make an appointment with their healthcare provider because a patient environment is not accessible.
This emerges from the College's annual monitor on the UN disability convention, in which the College calls on the government to set more concrete goals for digital accessibility and service delivery.
The UN Convention on Disability requires the government to take measures to ensure the accessibility of digital information and other services. In addition, the government must ensure that private parties also improve the accessibility of their digital information and services. This is important because digitization can improve access to information and services, but with poor digital accessibility, just the opposite can happen. Nico Schrijver, interim president of the Human Rights Board: "People with disabilities who cannot access a website or application independently are often forced to ask others for help. This affects their autonomy. The government must take additional steps to ensure that, as required by the UN Convention on Disability, they can participate fully in society like everyone else."
The government has taken many steps toward digital accessibility over the years. Yet by October 2024, only 6% of the more than 9059 websites and mobile apps for which the government is responsible met all accessibility requirements. This is according to the Dashboard DigiToegankelijk of the Rijksoverheid. The Board finds this worrisome. Examples of inaccessibility are missing subtitles for videos, forms that cannot be operated without a mouse and complicated language. As a result, people with disabilities have poorer access to government information and services. This can put them at a disadvantage and prevent them from participating equally in society.
For several essential private service providers, such as in healthcare and education, legislation on accessibility is (partially) lacking. While there are still many problems here. For example, digital learning materials are not always accessible to students who use pre-reading software or other assistive programs. Research also shows that none of the surveyed websites of 80 hospitals fully complies with accessibility requirements, and there are signs in healthcare that personal health environments, such as electronic health records, are not or barely accessible to people who use a screen reader. As a result, people sometimes cannot make appointments or see results of tests. The College therefore advocates that accessibility requirements be established for essential private service providers.
In several sectors, physical services are declining, resulting in reduced telephone accessibility or the closure of bank branches, for example. When digital services or information are not accessible, people cannot manage their affairs as well or independently. People with disabilities stress that the lack of choice is a problem, as they often rely on digital options that do not always work for them.
The College, as a monitor of the implementation of the UN disability convention, makes a number of recommendations to improve digital accessibility and services for people with disabilities:
Formulate more concrete objectives for the National Strategy, including for the Caribbean Netherlands
Involve people with disabilities
Guarantee access to government services for representatives
Ensure that all government agencies adhere to the accessibility requirements of the Government Digital Accessibility Decree, including by setting requirements in procurement terms and ensuring effective oversight
Impose accessibility requirements and minimum guidelines on essential private service providers and provide training
Curious about our fully developed recommendations? Then read our monitor report. A summary of the report, a simple language version and an NGT video are also available.
