Digital accessibility monitoring
The Information and Press Service (SIP) is responsible at the national level for monitoring the accessibility of public websites and mobile applications. The monitoring procedure has been defined in accordance with the law of 28 May 2019 and implementing decision EU 2018/1524.
Checks are carried out within monitoring periods. The first monitoring period began on 23 September 2020 and ended at the end of 2021. There is then one monitoring period per calendar year.
There are three types of inspection:
- In-depth site monitoring: This is a compliance audit based on the RAWeb framework. The result of the audit shows whether the site is accessible and any accessibility problems encountered.
- Simplified monitoring: The aim of this audit is to detect non-compliances and to raise awareness among the various parties involved. It does not allow compliance to be assessed, but it can be carried out more quickly and therefore on a larger number of sites. The method is described on the page "simplified control method".
- Mobile application monitoring: this is a compliance audit based on the RAAM framework. The result of the audit shows whether the application is accessible and if any accessibility issues have been encountered.
The checks are carried out in several stages:
- Making an inventory of all the websites and applications of the organisations in the scope of the law. The inventory of public sites and apps are available on the Open data portal.
- Defining the samples of sites and apps to be checked. It would be unrealistic to try to test everything. The implementing decision defines the number of tests to be carried out for each category of test (for example, for the period 2020-2021, the SIP must carry out 15 in-depth site audits, 87 simplified site audits and 2 mobile audits). This stage of selecting the sites and apps to be tested is carried out in consultation with the main stakeholders in the disability sector. The sample for the period 2020-2021 is published on the Open data portal.
- Carrying out audits. The results of the audits will progressively be published on the Open data portal.
- Producing a report for the European Commission based on the audit results. The first report covering the period 2020-2021 is available as Open data. These reports are published every 3 years.