Now Offering Accurate and Affordable AI-powered Captioning & Transcription

We’ve been blogging about this legislation for months, and the battle has been won!  President Obama signed the 21st Century Communications & Video Accessibility Act into law on Friday, October 8, 2010, during the National Disability Employment Awareness Month. This new legislation requires smart phones, television programs, emergency broadcast information, the Internet, menus on DVD players, program guides on cable TV, and other communication devices to be accessible to people with disabilities, thus creating more opportunities in the workplace and classroom. It also provides funding for deaf and blind people to purchase communication equipment and services. With society’s new reliance on the Internet and other modern technologies, this legislation simply allows people with disabilities access to technologies that are used in everyday life.

Many people fought long and hard for this bill to become a law. Representative Edward Markey authored the bill in 2009. He had this to say: “We’ve moved from Braille to broadband, from tracing words in palms to navigating a Palm Pilot.  Americans with disabilities need access to the latest 21st century communications and video tools to compete in the job market and engage in daily activities that increasingly rely on the latest technologies.”

On the 20th Anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, 348 members of the U.S. House of Representatives voted for HR 3101, the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act. This act will require closed captioning on all Internet video information and will help millions of people have access to these videos. This act will also provide up to $10 million annually for specialized communications equipment for low-income individuals who are deaf/blind. It also requires that Internet telephones be hearing aid compatible.

California Representative Henry A. Waxman states: “Today, as we mark the 20th anniversary of the landmark Americans with Disabilities Act, the House is giving Americans with disabilities access to smart phones, other communications technology, and video programming. This bill ensures that millions of Americans with disabilities can participate in our 21st century digital society.”

Senator John Kerry said, “Technology and the Internet have broken down barriers, and no one should be or has to be excluded from modern communications and the new economy because of a disability. It’s been 20 years since the Americans With Disabilities Act knocked down barriers to employment and government services — and now it’s time to do the same thing [with regard to] blocking people with disabilities from getting online.”

So what happens next? The bill gets sent to the Senate for vote and if it passes, it will be signed into law!