Section 508 Compliance

Who does Section 508 apply to?

Section 508 is an amendment to the Workforce Rehabilitation Act of 1973 that was signed into law by President Clinton in the United States in 1998. Since then, it has undergone several strengthening refreshes over the years. The legislation ensures that information and communications covered developed with US Federal funding is accessible to people with disabilities. This includes any people or organizations anyone who wish to do business with the Federal Government. If contractors or vendors submit non-compliant documents, the government may decide to reject them or cancel contracts.

The  Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) covers accessibility laws for State governments, local governments, non-profit and private organizations. For more information, see our article on ADA compliance.

How is Section 508 compliance enforced?

If an organization falls under the jurisdiction of Section 508, then all digital communications it creates must be 508 compliant. Non-compliance complaints can be filed with The Access Board. There are advocacy groups that monitor federal agencies to verify that they are 508 compliant. Occasionally, these advocacy groups will seek legal resolution for organizations that are not compliant.

Section 508 refresh

The U.S. Access Board recently released a final rule that updates accessibility requirements for information and communication technology (ICT) in the federal sector. The goal of the refresh was to update standards to reflect recent technology innovations. The refresh references WCAG 2.0 as the standard for Section 508 compliant documents.

What is WCAG 2.0?

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) defines standards for the Web. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0) were developed by the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI), a working group of the W3C. The recent Section 508 refresh brought harmonization with the WCAG 2.0, which is incorporated by reference. For accessible PDF files, the recommended format is the PDF/UA format (which complies with WCAG 2.0).

Section 508 compliant PDF

There is an extensive list of requirements for section 508 compliant PDF documents. The requirements can be broken down into 6 categories:

• Master Requirements for all Documents
• General Layout and Formatting Requirements
• Accessibility Tagging and Reading Order
• Document Images Requirement
• Lists and Tables
• Form Fields

Please see our Section 508 Checklist for Accessible PDF for complete details of all the requirements.

Making Section 508 compliant documents

This is often the most overwhelming part for someone who has been tasked to “make a document accessible”. Meeting requirements for Section 508 can be a complex task. Each document will present its own individual challenges. This complex process requires specialized training and extensive experience working with documents.  Careful, knowledgeable human inspection, testing and corrective actions are all part of the process. We are here to help. Contact us!

The information on this website does not constitute legal advice of any kind. If you are unsure about anything to do with the legal requirements of the Section 508, contact a lawyer.