You can draw up the accessibility statement independently or with the help of an external expert. What is important is that the statement contains the content required by the Digital Services Act, that it has been clearly written and that it can be found on the website in an accessible format.
The accessibility statement describes the accessibility status of the digital service and any deviations from the accessibility requirements. In addition, the statement explains how the user can give feedback on accessibility. We recommend creating a separate statement for each website/app. This will make your work and maintaining the statements easier, and helps the user find the necessary information quickly.
The Act on the Provision of Digital Services requires compliance with the criteria of the latest version of the WCAG guidelines, i.e. the criteria of level A and AA of WCAG 2.1 guidelines.
The Digital Services Act has been drafted to promote the accessibility, quality, information security and accessibility of the content of digital services, thus improving everyone’s possibilities of using digital services equally. The Digital Services Act implements the EU Accessibility Directive (2016/2102).
Read The Digital Services Act here (in Finnish or Swedish only).
The EU Accessibility Directive was drafted to promote equality in society and to increase innovation. The purpose of the single market is to strengthen cooperation within the EU, provide more affordable and uniform digital services and avoid overlapping work in the Member States.
Read the Directive here.
You can publish the statement on the website as a separate page or it can be linked to the website. Regardless of the file format, the organisation must ensure that the statement is in an accessible format and supports the use of different assistive technologies.
The accessibility statement for mobile applications must be displayed in an accessible format on the website of the service provider of the mobile application or otherwise so that the statement is available when downloading the mobile application.
Content produced by an external party in the online service that is not funded, developed or supervised by the service provider is not covered by the requirements of the Digital Services Act.
The applies, for example, to social media content or other content produced by users themselves that cannot be modified to meet the accessibility requirements.
However, exceptions do not include content that the service provider has ordered from an external partner. In other words, the service provider should ensure the accessibility of, for example, reports or infographics commissioned by them.
The accessibility statement informs the user of the accessibility of the service. The Digital Services Act and the EU Accessibility Directive outline that every organisation subject to legal requirements must carry out an accessibility assessment of its websites, draw up an accessibility statement and publish it on the website. This accessibility statement tool helps you prepare the statement.
