Speaker's information
Bachelor of Law
Juan Carlos RAMIRO IGLESIAS is Supervisor of Training and Employment Projects at ONCE Foundation He is advisor for the Social Services, Family and Disability State Department of the Labour and Welfare Ministry in Spain.
Information sur l'auteur
Juan Carlos RAMIRO IGLESIAS est Coordinateur des projets de formation et d'emploi à la Fondation ONCE. Il est conseiller pour les services sociaux, la famille, et les personnes handicapées au département d'état du Ministère du travail et des Affaires Sociales en Espagne.
Short paper
In May, 2004 was presented in the Economic and Social Council in Spain, "the
Report on the situation of the persons with disability in Spain". In
it was reflected that only in our country about 3,'5 million persons exist
with disability. Recently, the commissary responsible for the Society of the
Information of the European Commission, Viviane Reding, declared what we all
know and defend, the present potential in the TIC to accede to the education,
the employment, the culture and the leisure, and simultaneously to improve
the well-being of the persons. Nevertheless, also she showed her worry before
the chilling information of which more than 90 million European citizens found
the impossibility, or the great difficulty, to accede to the TIC due to a
disability or ones age. They cannot enjoy fullly these advantages for reasons
of age or disability turning the advantages in disadvantages and increasing
so often debated digital gap. For this motive, I surprised very pleasingly
when she demonstrated that "to do that the TIC are more accessible it is a
social, ethical and political imperative", on having coincided fullly with
the sensibility and Philosophy of our President of Government, Jose Luis Rodríguez
Zapatero, who has formed these affirmations from the beginning as indispensable
to play the role of the persons with disability citizens of right plenary
session.
The situation of accessibility to the TIC in Spain, and of the accessibility
in general, as in the majority of the countries of the European Union, it
possesses enormous lacks in all its areas, from emblematic Internet up to
the last trends in audio-visual systems, happening, certainly, for the mobile
telephony. During the year 2004 many reports and studies have been seen light
which were analyzing the accessibility to the web portals of different sectors
of the society, elaborated by diverse entities and associations of social
character. This way, the consulting ACTIVE company concluded that 94 % of
the city halls in Spain does not fulfill the level "A" according
to the analysis realized at the end of March; 100 % of the portals of the
political parties were not fulfilling the level "A", not having
any the accessible front page, according to the study of the same company
done in May. Identical situation was given in the accessibility to the portals
of the principal televisions, where none was fulfilling the level A either,
according to the study realized in November by the consulting one.
It turns out to be worrying in equal measured the results that the web of
the infoaccesibility contributes in a recent study, project created by the
portal Discapnet and belonging to Foundation ONCE, In that there have been
analyzed the portals of the principal Spanish universities, both public and
private. The conclusions discover us that none reaches 50% of accessibility.
We all know that if the education is a fact necessary for any person, the
access to the same one in disabled persons appears like vitally and indispensable
tool to join to the society in equality of opportunities. Any barrier, in
this case the virtual accessibility to the education, supposes one more step
in enlarging the digital gap.
When in April, 2004 the new Government of Spain entered functions, it proved to be clearly and firmly its decision to start the strategies and projects that were necessary to achieve that all the disabled persons were citizens of right plenary session. Very conscious from the same Presidency of the importance and urgency of the access on the part of all the citizens to the New Technologies of the Information and the Communication, the first decision consisted of registering this philosophy starting up the denominated project Moncloa Plan, which was chasing the integral accessibility to the complex, and, certainly, in the field that we debate here, the accessibility to the portals web of Presidency of the Government, so much the principal one as those who depend on it. Thus, one started being employed at the new design and in these first months all the citizens will accede to the principal portal of the Administration in a level of double design AAA, and in some cases, as that the Official Bulletin of the State presents us in tripple A design.
As continuation of this work, the accesses to the portals of the Departments and Organisms dependent on the Spanish Administration will turn in fullly accessible for all the citizens. Of this form, they have started realizing the studies and audits that make possible this aim, taking very anticipated the works in some Departments, please allow me to mention that of Work, Social Affairs and Disability, to achieve the full virtual accessibility in advance to the fulfillment of the legal established period.
Nevertheless, as we all know, Internet is not the beginning and the end of the TIC, though it is constituted as the most visible aspect. The New Technologies of the Communication and the Information must be meditated in each and every of its aspects, including in the same ones the services of television and audio-visual or the mobile telephony, for mentioning some examples. The Secretariat of State of Social Services, Families and Disability, Amparo Valcarce, as General Secretariat of the Royal Patronage of the Disability, organ dependent on the Department of Work, showed again in the presentation of the strategic lines of the center the firm decision to promote across the Royal Patronage essential projects to achieve the full accessibility to the NTIC on the part of the persons with disability. Thus, it established as essential props the technological top adequacy in its physical and virtual development:
- On one hand, the accessible environment, the universal accessibility and the maintenance of the beginning of Design for all will form a part indissolubly in the technological adequacy foreseen in the Royal Patronage, which virtual and physical contents will follow the international regulations of accessibility.
- For other one, it will develop a program of activities of transference of good practices and of formation of human resources in Spain, and in between Spain and Latin America.
Among the principal lines of performance of the Royal Patronage, the Secretariat of State, Amparo Valcarce demonstrated the intention of creating a Subtitles Spanish Center. Spain counts with near a million persons with auditory deficiency. For them to accede to the mass media is not easy. To handle the written press is difficult for persons with scanty formative level and some persons, as the infantile population. The radio, logically, is not to their scope. Of this form, audio-visual environments like the television mean a basic element of relation with the social environment. Though in the last years the audio-visual Spanish industry has started emitting certain programs in subtitled format, they have been always particular initiatives of the channels, beginning to develop in a daily way the subtitles destinated for the deaf population. It has treated itself in all the cases of particular and normally individual initiatives.
For all this, the Secretariat of State proposed to stimulate from the Royal Patronage of the Disability the putting in march of diverse measurements that they help to place to our country at the level of other nations that for years have created effective systems to settle the subtitles in the audio-visual products, following already present examples as the located ones in The United States, Great Britain or Canada.
This way, on September 23, 2004 a protocol of agreement was signed in the Department of Work to start the Subgraduate's Spanish Center. This protocol was signed by the majority of the companies placed in the audio-visual sector and the own Department of Work, achieving thus the Department to unite the interests to obtain them putting in march during the year 2005. their lines of performance will turn principally concerning:
- Formation gives for subtitles that could recover this function in the sector.
- To elaborate general regulations exceed the technical characteristics of the subtitles in order to guarantee the homogenelty and the predictable interchange of materials.
- Creation of a data base service of information actualizables at the disposal of the whole sector that allows the interchange and traffic of the subqualified materials.
- Possibility of giving technical assistance or subgraduate's services to operators and companies that request like it.
This year 2005 is going to mean for the persons with disability in Spain the most important of last twenty years. In December, 2003 there was approved the Law of Equality of Opportunities and not Discrimination, which contemplates a complete and global development in all the fields, sectors and activities that affect the disabled persons. This law gets the philosophy of the concept of independent life, and is dictated from the conviction of which not accessibility of the environments, products and services related to the New Technologies of the Information and the Communication, they suppose undoubtedly someone, forming one evidently in many cases and very subtlely in others, of direct discrimination in the first case and hint in the second one, Generating disadvantages and unequal evident and clear in relation with the persons that are not disabled. Consequently, the beginning of universal accessibility and design for all were the guides in what concerns the aspects of the NTIC that the Law tries to develop, and this way it remains reflected in its article 2.
The field that today assembles us here, the New Technologies and the Society
of the Communication, remains explicitly reflected in the Seventh Final Disposition
of the Law, which says textually :
"Basic conditions of accessibility and not discrimination for the access
and utilization of the technologies, products and services related to the
society of the information and media of social communication.
In the period of two years from the entry into force of this law, the Government
will pass, according to the foreseen in its article 10, a few basic conditions
of accessibility and not discrimination for the access and utilization of
the technologies, products and services related to the society of the information
and of any way of social communication, which they will be obligatory in the
term from four to six years from the entry into force of this law for all
the products and new services, and in the term from eight to ten years for
all existing those that are capable of reasonable adjustments."
For the study and development of these basic conditions, which will be of
obliged fulfillment, the Department of Work and Social Services, across the
Headquarter of the created and not existing Disability up to the new Government,
it has started coordinating to the different Departments implied in order
to carry out, in time and suitable term, the above mentioned conditions. It
is important to mention, in addition, that the Administration counts with
the continuous support and advice of Representatives' Spanish Committee of
Persons with Disability, entity that agglutinates to the majority of persons'
associations with disability in Spain. Of this form, the Administration deals
like necessary to incorporate the experience and the advice of the associations
of disabled into the developments that are realized normally.
It seems to me to be important to mention that the Law also meditates in its
Tenth Final Disposition, the introduction of the "formative Curriculum
on universal accessibility and professionals' formation", that will mean the
development of the formative curriculum in "design for all", in
all the educational programs, included the university students, For the professionals'
formation in the fields of the design and the construction of the physical
environment, the building, the infrastructures and public works, the transport,
the communications and telecommunications and the services of the society
of the information. Obviously, the introduction of the formative curriculum
in the field of the New Technologies constitutes an essential step in the
change of philosophy, due to the fact that it will propitiate the exit of
professionals expert in the accessibility to the same ones and, consequently,
the development of the design for all from the beginning of the generation
of any product or service, eliminating thus the followed process till now
"modification on the made thing".
Precisely in this field, in February a module or subject of accessibility is going to start being given, for the first time in Spain, specific in university courses of postdegree in the National University of Education distantly. This project, already a reality, is started by virtue of an agreement of collaboration between the Royal Patronage of the Disability, dependent of the Department of Work and Social Services, the own University and Foundation ONCE, where Enrique Varela has been an important part as a responsible for Fundosa Teleservices.
Sixteen persons with disability join, in addition, to the master of postdegree,
which will serve us throughout the present year of experience to adapt the
materials and the virtual platforms so that from the fiscal year 2006 this
formation spreads to a major number of educational programs of the National
University of Education distantly. The text of the "Law of Equality of
Opportunities and not discrimination" that we have exposed in general
lines developed on the basis of the report named National I Plan of Accessibility
2004-2012, elaborated in inter-ministerial groups of work and obtaining the
advice of the sector of the disability for its definitive draft. Definitively,
the Law has incorporated the principal lines of action in its body, lines
that are being developed by the current Administration: consciousness and
formation, technical regulation and guides, promotion of the investigation
and the innovation, plans and programs, promotion of the participation in
the society. The aim, I return to insist, to turn definitively the persons
with disability, to a great extent thanks to the topic that here we speak,
the New Technologies, in citizens of right plenary session.
We all here present are conscious that the new technologies are not ended in Internet, and we know that these are formed by multiple tools of access to the information and advances and technological innovations. I believe that we will coincide also that one of the technological factors that more is going to influence our society the next years is going to be the Digital Interactive Television, probably so much or more like it it has been the emblem of the new Technologies, Internet. In Spain we are conscious of it, and for this motive already one is employed of serious form at this field, trying to contemplate the topic of the accessibility to the same one.
If initially the analogue blackout was foreseen for the year 2012, everything seems to indicate an advance in at least 3 or 4 years. If it is not operated by speed and forecast, for an important part of the population like the disabled persons it can have very important consequences in the increase of the digital gap. This has motivated that the IMSERSO and the State Center of Technical Adjustments, organs dependent on the Department of Work and Social Matters, in collaboration with diverse associations of disabled, has elaborated already an exhaustive report that contemplates a study and a wide description on the Digital Television and the Accessibility. They have tried to form each other all the recommendations with it and actions of improvement preparing the implantation of the Digital Television.
This report does a meticulous revision brings over the situation of the Digital Television in Spain and in Europe for, knowing in depth and closely its state, to elaborate the suitable strategies that serve to design the measures to take as for its accessibility. The report contains a description of five basic points in the emission of services of support in the Digital Television:
the subtitle, the audiodescription, the language of signs, the interactive services and the international projects on interactivity in the terminals of Digital Television.
But the real significance of this wide report it constitutes the corresponding paragraph to its recommendations and valuations. To elaborate these recommendations and valuations, there were born in mind all the contributions of the Associations and representatives of disabled persons and that were exposed during the development of the Seminar III of Digital TV celebrated in the University King Juan Carlos in 2004. Equally, demands of certain entities specially affected like are the groups of persons with auditory disability or that of the blind persons, they were treated and assumed by special interest.
All the aspects contemplated in the report are an object of study and debate in the groups of work that there have formed under the coordination of the Department of Industry, where they are situated responsible for the principal companies introduced inside the audio-visual sector, included the big television channels that work in Spain, and certainly, the Department of Work and Social Affairs that is present with several representatives. The purpose is that, once the digital analogue blackout takes place, the new digital interactive television starts contemplating every paragraph of accessibility to disabled persons.
If nowadays a field exists in the development social that concerns any area, it is that of the New Technologies. Introduced and participant in the education, the culture, the leisure, the health, also its development has influenced essential measure the field of the Telecommunications. It is more, the unstoppable advance in the innovations in new technologies, principally in the means of access and transmission of voice, information and elements multimedia, it had not been possible without the equal development in everything what the environment of the Telecommunications includes. Since it could not be differently, the current in force law in Spain, and that the new Administration has assumed the commitment to incorporate as tool in the fight against the digital gap, it is Telecomunication's General Law. Approved in December, 2003, its putting in march is going to suppose an important step in the elimination of the discrimination.
In its General Dispositions, the law already to incorporate its intention,
on having declared that it must expire with "...the satisfaction of the
needs of the groups with special, such needs as the persons with disability".
In its Title the II incorporates in its draft the need of "the final
users with disability have access to the telephonic available service to the
public from a fixed location and to other elements of the universal service
mentioned in this article in comparable conditions to those who offer themselves
the rest of final users". With this explicit declaration it tries to
safeguard the equality of rights that any person with a disability, is of
the type that is, must have to accede to the services that the law contemplates
without any level of restriction. Important aspect is the foreseen one in
what concerns the operators' choice, when it demonstrates that the necessary
guarantees will be established in order that the persons with disability are
of benefit in the moment of its decision as the rest of final users.
It turns out unnecessary to comment that the law meditates, equally, that all the telematic records as well as the services of notifications will have to fulfill the requirements in topics of accessibility that World Wide Web was established by the WAI of the Consortium Web.
Ladies and Gentlemen, Spain is conscious that the problematic of the persons
with disability, their social integration as citizens of straight plenary
sessions, is not limited to one or any countries exclusively as that today
we met here. The problem that the New Technologies and the discrimination
are provoking that, for not contemplating aspects of universal accessibility,
is taking place in hundreds of thousands of persons in the whole world is
serious. If in advanced countries, in our European environment, there moves
along the risk of creating an insurmountable digital gap, in countries with
minor resources and development the consequences can be irreversible. Very
conscious of it, we participate actively in the "Convention for the protection
and the promotion of the rights and the dignity of the persons with disability"
that during these days is being celebrated in the United Nations. To this
Convention the Department of Work and Social Services, in coordination with
the Foreign Department, has sent two qualified representatives to defend and
to advance in the lines of persons' integration with disability. Qualified
experts who take part equally, as it was last week, in the meetings of preparatory
COHOM of the Convention celebrated in Brussels. It turns out evident that,
among the offers that remove, there are included those that today we debate
here it brings over the necessary and imperious need to implement concepts
of universal design in the whole sector of the new technologies.
From here I want to transmit to you the total sensibility that from the Department of Work, and very specially from the Secretariat of State of Social Affairs, Family and Disability, whose person in charge Dña. Amparo Valcarce, demonstrates in this field, and the firm decision to take forward the policies of accessibility that are necessary in order that, definitively, any person with some disability is civil with right plenary sessions.
