Technology should empower everyone! However, for millions of Americans with disabilities, access to digital communication remains a challenge. Recognizing this gap, Congress enacted the “Communications and Video Accessibility Act (CVAA)” to modernize protections and ensure equal access across broadband, digital, and mobile technologies.
Why does this matter?
- 36 million Americans experience hearing loss
- 25 million Americans face significant vision impairments
- According to a survey in 2017, approximately 6 million Americans have vision loss, and 1 million Americans are completely blind.
To bridge this divide, the National Broadband Plan called for updated accessibility regulations. The CVVA guidelines ensure that as technology advances, inclusivity keeps pace. It is a crucial step toward a more connected, accessible world for all.
What is CVAA Compliance?
The Communication and Video Accessibility Act (CVAA) is a section in the Accessibility Act that is responsible for making every modern communication channel and technology accessible to everyone, regardless of their disabilities.
This act is set to lay some foundation rules for organizations that work with video programming. However, YouTube videos are set to have some rule exemptions under CVAA.
Why Was the CVAA Passed?
The CVAA and Americans with disabilities act aims to enhance accessibility laws. It seeks to ensure that everyone, regardless of their disabilities, can use telephones and watch television programs with equal ease. It also mandates that online television programs meet the same accessibility standards as those broadcast on network TV.
Smartphones are crucial for making emergency calls and receiving urgent information, such as evacuation orders or storm warnings. The Emergency Access Advisory Committee and others emphasized that this information is vital and should be universally accessible to people with disabilities, enabling them to protect themselves and stay informed.
Beyond emergencies, accessible telecommunications and video programming enable people with disabilities to engage with their community and interact with others as they choose. For instance, being deaf should not prevent someone from enjoying television shows.
What are Advanced Communication Services?
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) characterizes advanced communications services as follows:
- Interconnected Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services
- Non-interconnected VoIP services
- Electronic messaging services
- Interoperable video conferencing services
These services encompass various forms of communication, such as text or instant messaging, video chat, voice chat, email, and real-time video interactions.
A clear definition of advanced communications was essential to address the ongoing debate about whether video games should comply with the CVAA. This is because many multiplayer games feature chat and messaging functions that fall under advanced communications, thus making them subject to CVAA accessibility.
What are the Two Titles Mentioned in CVAA?
There are two titles in the CVAA that define accessibility rules for video programming and other modes of communication. Organizations must comply with any of the titles that apply to them the most based on the services or products offered.
Title I – Communication Access
Title I of the CVVA compliance focuses on enhancing communication features in products and services that use broadband, ensuring better accessibility for individuals with disabilities. This title covers several key areas, including:
- Ensuring advanced communication services are accessible to all users. These services encompass VoIP and non-VoIP services, text messaging, email, instant messaging, video programming guides, and video conferencing.
- Making mobile web browser user interfaces accessible for blind users.
- Increasing FCC engagement with consumer complaints and reporting.
- Improving compatibility of hearing aids with communication services.
- Allocating funds for specialized equipment tailored to users with disabilities.
Title II – Video Programming
Title II ensures that people with disabilities can easily access TV and internet content produced by video programmers who follow FCC regulations. Key provisions under this title include:
- Rules for audio descriptions.
- Requirements for closed captions.
- Increased FCC oversight.
- Mandates that emergency information be accessible to those who are blind or people with visual impairment.
- Requirements that TVs and other video devices have a button, icon, or key for enabling closed captions, video descriptions, and audio descriptions.
- Ensuring on-screen menus and guides are accessible to users with visual impairment.
What Does the CVAA Mean for Website Owners?
The Communications and Video Accessibility Act, or CVAA, emphasizes how online companies and website owners have an obligation to ensure that their digital platforms are usable by people with impairments. To guarantee that everyone can easily access content, businesses must incorporate specific features into their websites and applications.
In particular, website owners:-
- Ensure that users can easily access emergency information about potential threats or hazards when using online services.
- Must enable real-time text communication options
- Make sure that assistive technologies like screen readers and hearing aids are compatible.
- Offer closed captioning for videos.
- Maintain current compliance records as evidence that these specifications are being successfully fulfilled.
- Provide descriptions of video content.
This act aims not only at fairness but also enhances user experience across all demographics by creating more inclusive digital spaces.
To Whom Do the CVAA Requirements Apply?
If the content was previously aired on television and is going to be published again, then it must abide by CVAA guidelines. Online video captioning is important for every content distributor and video creator.
- Video programmers must ensure their content adheres to FCC caption quality standards and provide closed captions for all applicable programming.
- Video Programming Distributors (VPDs) are tasked to repeat these captions and guarantee their proper maintenance and delivery.
- Video programmers are required to provide the FCC contact details of the individuals in charge of ensuring captioning compliance.
- Video programming distributors (VPDs) no longer need to secure certifications from video programmers regarding captioning compliance. Instead, they must carry out annual reviews of captioning CVAA complaints and take appropriate action.
- Video programmers must handle any complaints related to the creation, quality, or delivery of captions that are forwarded to them by VPDs.
- Video programmer also needs to provide annual certifications to the FCC that adhere to the following:
- Compliance with the FCC rules of captioning
- Implementing best practices for meeting captioning standards
- Determining if they qualify for an exemption from closed captioning rules
What are the Benefits of CVAA Compliance?
Organizations and businesses can benefit from complying with CVAA in several ways. Below are some points of advantages they can get for CVAA compliance:
-
Wide Audience Reach
By complying with CVAA, organizations can make their content accessible to everyone, regardless of their disabilities. This opens the door to a set of a wide audience and broadens revenue for the organization.
-
Minimized Legal Risk
Violation of CVAA compliance can lead to several legal troubles for an organization. This means the company will also need to incur penalties and suffer legal problems. By being CVAA compliant, organizations can position themselves better for addressing claims and decrease their risk of running into legal troubles, hence avoiding heavy and costly violations.
-
Elevated Search Presence
Transcription audio and visual files make them more discoverable. When these files become discoverable, search engines can crawl them and rank the content based on adherence to their algorithm, making content increase its search presence.
-
Better User Experience
Ultimately, the main goal of any organization should be to elevate its user experience in order to bring in more revenue. In order to give a better experience, making the UI/UX more accessible for every user can enhance accessibility, reach people with disabilities, and provide them with a better experience in consuming content.
How to Meet CVAA Requirements
An immediate two-step action plan is required for organizations to meet the requirements of CVAA compliance that are already in effect:
- Retain the necessary technical expertise for CVAA compliance
- Retain a legal counsel who is experienced in the Communications Regulatory Law
Once the above-mentioned two-step action plan is followed, the organization needs to take the below steps to meet CVAA requirements:
Determine the most frequently accessed audio-visual content and start by ensuring that these materials are accessible.
- Establish a process where all new content is captioned and made accessible from the start.
- Focus on the CVAA accessibility of current audio-visual assets, prioritizing those that are essential for the site’s users.
- Verify that the audio-visual players on the website are compatible with assistive technology.
What are the Penalties for Non-Compliance With CVAA?
If an entity does not comply with CVAA requirements, the FCC has the right to issue a notice of apparent liability to let the entity know that they will be issuing a heavy fine on the organization for the absence of CVVA accessibility in their content.
Once this notice is issued to an entity, they have the right to provide evidence in their defense. Further, the FCC is also allowed to issue fines on companies and networks that do not comply with CVAA requirements that give out 21st-century technologies or communication programs.
Note that the fines can add up to thousands of dollars per violation. This can become extremely expensive for organizations as opposed to simply complying with the CVAA.
Who Can Be Exempted From CVAA Compliance?
User-generated content falls outside the scope of CVAA compliance. This exemption allows independent content creators who aren’t associated with established TV networks to post videos on platforms like YouTube, Twitch, TikTok, and others without adhering to CVAA guidelines.
While YouTube does provide an automatic subtitle feature to enhance accessibility, these subtitles are generated by machines and frequently lack accuracy.
Ensure CVAA Compliance—Easily & Affordably
Make your videos fully accessible with Continual Engine’s AI-powered, human-validated solutions. Get high-accuracy captions, transcriptions, and audio descriptions. Get fast, scalable, and cost-effective services.
- No contracts—pay as you go
- Multiple formats & languages supported
- 98% accurate, expert-reviewed captions
