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Accessibility of digital sites and services
Translations are provided as a service to Arcom users and are supplied “as is”, throught the DeepL tool. Consequently, only the text of the original version is authentic.
The ordinance of September 6, 2023 amended the law of February 11, 2005 for equal rights and opportunities, participation and citizenship of disabled people, notably through the creation of article 47-1 of this law. This entrusts Arcom with the task of ensuring compliance with a certain number of obligations relating to the accessibility of digital services, i.e. websites, mobile applications, intranets and so on.
Arcom's role
More specifically, depending on the service, Arcom checks compliance with the following obligations:
- Compliance with accessibility requirements: for websites, this point is checked against the criteria of the Référentiel Général d'Amélioration de l'Accessibilité (RGAA). This obligation is not monitored by Arcom for private companies.
- Acknowledgement of compliance: each online service must clearly display its compliance with accessibility rules on its home page.
- Presence and conformity of the accessibility declaration, the organization's multi-year accessibility plan and the current year's action plan.
- Provision of a reporting scheme for breaches of accessibility rules.
The RGAA (référentiel général d'amélioration de l'accessibilité) scheme makes provision for accessibility declarations published by those responsible for digital services to provide a contact point for reporting accessibility faults. As such, individuals and associations representing the public concerned are likely to contact the managers of these services.
However, even if Arcom maintains a close dialogue with associations in order to take their comments and suggestions into account, it does not delegate in any way to any person or group whatsoever the task of intervening with people subject to the schemes set out in article 47 of the law of February 11, 2005. Arcom would like to warn you against any approach from potentially ill-intentioned persons claiming to intervene on its behalf.
In the event of breaches
In the event of non-compliance by sworn agents, Arcom may give formal notice to the artificial persons on which the service comes under the control of to comply with the legal provisions. Should they persist in failing to abide by the law, the Authority may impose legal sanctions of up to 50,000 euros for non-compliance with accessibility requirements, and 25,000 euros for the other obligations mentioned above, depending on the nature, seriousness and duration of the breach.
In the case of companies whose sales are concerned, Arcom is only empowered to monitor compliance with signage requirements. It cannot therefore intervene with this category of players on the basis of non-compliance with accessibility requirements.
Which players are involved?
Arcom will be able to intervene in this capacity with all the persons mentioned in article 47 of the law of February 11, 2005, i.e. :
- Artificial persons governed by public law;
- Private artificial persons delegated with a public service mission;
- Companies whose sales exceed a threshold set by decree (currently 250 million euros).
For all of these players, with the exception of companies, Arcom will also be responsible for checking that digital services comply with the RGAA, the Référentiel général d'amélioration de l'accessibilité. In the same way as for the above-mentioned obligations, the non-compliance of a service with the accessibility requirements set out in the RGAA, observed by sworn agents, may lead Arcom to give formal notice to the entity to comply with its legal obligations.
Arcom's action plan
Obligations and criteria of the General Repository for the Improvement of Accessibility (RGAA)
The RGAA (référentiel général d'amélioration de l'accessibilité - General Accessibility Improvement Reference Framework) verifies a site's compliance with accessibility criteria based on European standard EN 301 549 V2.1.2 (2018-08), itself based on the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.1). In France, the sites of public bodies and large private companies must be audited to assess their compliance with the RGAA.
RGAA quick audit
If you have a good knowledge of the RGAA, you can carry out an accessibility audit of your digital services using the "Ara" assistance tool .
Frequently asked questions
Article 3, 5° of Decree no. 2019-768 of July 24, 2019 on the accessibility of online public communication services for people with disabilities makes provision for "the following content to be exempted from the accessibility obligation set out in Article 1: [...] 5° Third-party content that is neither financed nor developed by the organization concerned and is not under its control".
Under the provisions of the decree, third-party content must satisfy a triple condition in order to be exempted:
- It must not be financed by the service editor;
- It must not be under the control of the latter;
- not be developed by the latter.
Subject to assessment of the specific case, the acquisition of a third-party solution is likely to characterize the financing referred to in 5° of article 3 of the decree of July 24, 2019. Consequently, the content cannot be considered as third-party and must meet accessibility requirements.
Insofar as article 1 of the decree of July 24, 2019 requires publishers of online public communication services to comply with the harmonized European standard EN 301 549, and the reference framework provided for in article 5 of the same decree is intended solely to establish a methodology for monitoring this standard, the fact that the RGAA is silent on a point included in the European standard in no way alters the scope of the latter. In other words, independently of the RGAA, the European norm is binding on those subject to it, including in terms of compliance with the principle of non-interference.
If non-compliant third-party content did not meet the conditions required to be exempted from the obligation to comply with accessibility requirements, and if a waiver for disproportionate burden was invoked (the merits of which Arcom assesses on a case-by-case basis), Arcom points out that article 4 of the decree of July 24, 2019 and the RGAA make provision for content and functionalities derogating from the compliance obligation to be accompanied, as far as is reasonably possible, by an accessible alternative, particularly if the content or functionalities in question concern the main missions of a body entrusted with a public service mission.
Content published by Arcom-regulated organizations on social networks is not subject to accessibility requirements under article 47 of the law of February 11, 2005. Arcom is only competent to check that content posted by organizations on their own public communication services complies with accessibility requirements. Nevertheless, Arcom encourages all players within the scope of its authority to ensure the accessibility of the content they publish, even outside their own services.
The decree of July 24, 2019 makes provision for the reference sales figure "to be calculated for each person on the basis of average annual sales in France for the last three financial years ended prior to the year in question". This means that, on the one hand, the last three financial years must be taken into account and, on the other hand, that - particularly in the case of companies operating internationally - only sales generated in France should be taken into account.
Furthermore, in the case of groups comprising several companies, the reference sales figure is not the consolidated sales figure at group level, but that of the company listed as responsible for the online public communication service (website or mobile application, for example) in the latter's legal disclaimer.