This year, the European Accessibility Act has applied for the first time to a broader group of businesses than before. Where comparable requirements previously applied mainly to government and large service providers, smaller parties now fall under it if they offer certain products or services to consumers: think of webshops, apps, e-books, payment terminals and certain banking services.
Whether and from which date this applies precisely to your business depends on what you sell and to whom. The statutory text and the guidance from the competent supervisory authority provide clarification on this; this article describes what changes in general terms, not what it means for your specific situation.
What changes in substance
The core of the act is that digital products and services must be accessible to people with disabilities. This affects, for example, the way a webshop is structured, whether an order form can also be used with a screen reader, and whether a PDF with product information is readable by assistive software. For some businesses this is an extension of something that already applied to their website or app; for others it is an entirely new obligation that came into effect this year.
The act is implemented per member state in national legislation, and the precise scope and exceptions are set out in it. An installation company with only an informational website typically faces different requirements than a webshop that processes orders and payments itself. For the exact boundary between mandatory and non-mandatory, the statutory text or a lawyer is the right point of reference.
For whom this makes a concrete difference this year
The change primarily affects businesses that sell or offer something via a digital channel to individual customers. An office manager managing the company website, an HR manager setting up a recruitment portal, or a director who has just launched a new webshop: for them this year may be the moment when an obligation came into effect that did not exist last year. This does not automatically mean that something goes wrong if you have not dealt with it yet, but it does mean that it is worth checking whether your business falls within the scope.
It is also one of those cases where a single change in legislation immediately affects multiple departments: the website, the ordering process and sometimes also customer service. This makes it difficult to see at a glance whether everything is in order, especially if those parts are managed by different people.
How this relates to what you already keep track of
Accessibility rarely stands alone. The same webshop that now has to meet accessibility requirements often also has to deal with product safety, packaging rules and the handling of personal data. When those subjects are each kept track of in a different portal, it is easy to miss that a new obligation has been added somewhere. Reglia does not add its own substantive explanation about accessibility — the platform set up for that does — but does ensure that you see in one overview which platforms are relevant for your business and what is outstanding there. On the page with connected platforms you can see which platform handles accessibility and which other subjects are involved.
Because each platform works with the same company data, you do not have to enter it again once it turns out that a new obligation applies to you. How that data use works exactly and what reglia does and does not do with it is explained on the page about how reglia works.
Where you can verify it yourself
Whether the law has become applicable to your company this year, and as of when, is something you should check directly with the law text, the supervisory authority's explanatory notes, or a lawyer. Reglia does not make any statement on this itself; the platform that has accessibility as its subject is the place where that question is answered substantively. Frequently asked questions about how reglia relates to this can be found on the frequently asked questions page.
If you want to see which platforms there are and what subject each platform covers, you can view that overview for free.