Digital strategies and disability law and policy

An overview of the digital strategies developed at the international, European and Italian level.

To date, focused digital strategies have been developed at the local, regional and global level, where promoting the full inclusion and active participation of persons with disabilities in the information society emerges as a core policy goal.

At the international level, the United Nations World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) process 2003-2005 is considered the first global attempt to translate human rights for the development and the global governance of the information society. Following the WSIS Summit, the calls for the protection of human rights in the digital arena have resulted in various reports, projects and political declarations at both global and regional levels. Meaningfully, the use of digital communication plays a key role in implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 2015, in particular, Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) no 4 (accessible school environments), no 8 (accessible workplaces) and no 11 (accessible cities, transport and public spaces). Nonetheless, to date, the only international binding legal instrument expressly referring to the importance of access to new information and communications technologies and systems, including the Internet, is the 2006 United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (hereinafter, CRPD). The CRPD widely refers to information technologies in relation to various rights: equality and non-discrimination (Article 5), accessibility (Article 9), right to live independently and participate in society (Article 19), freedom of expression and opinion and access to information (Article 21), privacy (Article 22), health and rehabilitation (Articles 25 and 26), participation in political and public life (Article 29).

At the European level, since 2012, the Council of Europe has developed an Internet Governance strategy aimed at integrating into its activities the protection and promotion of human rights and the rule of law in the digital era while preserving the Internet’s universality, integrity, and openness. In the EU legal and policy framework, the Commission – within the so-called Digital Single Market Strategy – aims to support an inclusive digital market in which citizens and businesses have the necessary skills and can benefit from interlinked e-services, such as e-government, e-justice, e-health, e-energy or e-transport. The Strategy purports to create opportunities for start-up and innovative enterprises, as well as for citizens in their everyday lives. Enhanced use of digital technologies can improve citizens’ access to information and culture, as well as foster their active participation in society. In this context, greater attention is paid to vulnerable citizens, such as persons with disabilities. EU policies on inclusive digital society point out the necessity for everyone to be actively engaged with society. Such policies promote the use of ICT to overcome social exclusion and improve economic performance, employment opportunities, quality of life, social participation and cohesion. Furthermore, they also respond to legal obligations, whereas Article 9 of the CRPD, to which the EU is a Party, requires that appropriate measures are taken to ensure access for persons with disabilities, on an equal basis with others, to, inter alia, information and communication technologies, including the Internet and digital media.

Within the EU regional dimension, web accessibility constitutes one of the pillars of the Digital Single Market strategy, in the awareness that e-Inclusion policies play an essential role in supporting the daily life of persons with disabilities in today’s digital society. In this line, the EU recently adopted the Directive 2016/2102 of 26 October 2016 on the accessibility of the websites and mobile applications of public sector bodies, which come along the recently adopted European Accessibility Act, which covers a much wider number of products and services. Seemingly, issues related to human rights protection, such as cybersecurity and digital privacy, feature high on the list of the political priorities of the European Commission and are at the core of the Digital Single Market Strategy. Hence, in the development of an EU digital society greater attention is paid to contrast the potential attack to personal data of their citizens, with reference to the most vulnerable ones. The implementation of international cooperation on cybersecurity becomes a priority in the current digital agenda so that the prompt implementation of EU legislation on security of network and information systems is of paramount importance. Furthermore, up to now, there is not a fair balance between the use of ICTs to collect personal data and the respect of the right to privacy of vulnerable people, whereas a coherent EU regulatory framework lacks. In this respect, a comprehensive reform of data protection rules in the EU has been recently implemented, throughout the adoption of the so-called General Data Protection Regulation 2016/679/EU (GDPR), repealing the Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC (DPD).

In Italy, the ambition to overcome the existing barriers to the full inclusion and active participation in the democratic society of persons with disabilities features high in the most recent public policy interventions. According to Law n. 4/2004, the national public administration must undertake the right to access to the IT and telecommunications services of the public administration and to the utilities for persons with disabilities, in compliance with the equality principle enshrined in Article 3 of the Italian Constitution. In this respect, the national public administration is facing a deep re-organisation of its online services, i.e. providing accessible websites and apps, or re-editing documents in an accessible format. Moreover, new public entities, such as the National Observatory on the Status of Persons with Disabilities (OND) and the Agency for Digital Italy (AgID), hold an advisory role and provides technical and scientific support to the drafting of national policies, aiming at developing and improving information on disability in Italy, while contributing to more efficient and suitable disability and digital policies.

However, despite the above-mentioned initiatives and legislation, to date, there is no targeted global governance in determining a proper policy and legal framework regulating the digital world, while self-regulation of non-state actors prevails. Accordingly, recent studies confirm that disability status is a significant factor in differentiating Internet access in European countries, including Italy.