Cost 219ter

The consumers' perspective

Chiara Giovannini, ANEC
Programme Manager

Content

1. ANEC in a nutshell
2. Example of standards in support of regulation under the New Approach
3. The challenges of eAccesibility standardisation and ANEC response
4. Conclusions

1. ANEC

Established in 1995 as an international non-profit association by national consumer organisations

Co-funded by the European Commission and EFTA

Members

Represent consumers from:

• EU Member States
  
• 3 Efat States (Iceland, Norway, Switzerland)

Mission

To represent consumer interests in standardisation, in particular in standards complementing European legislation

To comment on legislation related to standardisation

Areas of Priority

• Child safrety
  
• Design for all
  
• Domestic appliances
  
• The environment
  
• The Information society
  
• Services
  
• Traffic safety

2. Standards in support of regulation

EU approach to product safety = New Approach + GPSD + standards

• Legislator defines basic safety requirements
  
• Technical solutions left to standard-makers
  
• Standardisation = co-regulation

New Approach

Harmonised standards give presumption of conformity

CE marking

European Standards Bodies Recognised by 98/34 Directive:

CEN
CENELEC
ETSI

Principles of EU standardisation:

• Openness
  
• Transparency
  
• Consensus
  
• Coherence
  
• Full stakeholder participation
  
• Balanced representation
  
• IPRs based on FRAND

3. The challenges of eAccessibility standardisation (I)

• Many eAccessibility standards are informal standards (eg: W3C WAI guidelines)
• Increase in international standards
• Difficult to reflect in a relatively static document the dynamics of eAccessibily technologies
• Lack of standards implementation control mechanisms

ANEC response at the horizontal level

ANEC joined World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) in October 2004 as a pilot project in informal standardisation

ANEC contributed to the ICTSB report on the Challenges of ICT standardisation

ANEC response at the technical level

ANEC leads the ETSI Human Factors work on Access symbols for ICT products and services

ANEC will participate in CEN/ISSS WS on eAccessibility Quality Mark

ANEC will monitor the work for ISO/IEC JTC1 eAccessibility

Role of R&T projects

Consumer positions have to be based on scientific evidence

Standardisation is in a position to consolidate the results of R&T projects by way of consensus

4. Conclusions

• Consumers expect to be able to access all ICT products and services whatever their abilities because accessibility is a basic consumer right
  o Standardisation is essential, but not sufficient, to achieve eAccessibility
• Standards need to be developed in an open process to implement the full potential of the legislative instruments which encourage an eAccessibility approach
• However, there is a need for clearly identified objectives for standards bodies in mandates and their follow up
• Global acceptance is an essential aspect of eAccessibility standardisation
• The standardisation process should provide consumers with an opportunity to have a better impact on the international standardisation scene

Av. de Tervueren 32
B 1040 Bruxelles
phone: +32 2 743 24 70
e-mail: anec@anec.org
internet: www.anec.org

 

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