The first review of the AODA’s Information and communications Standards became public in 2020. In this review, the AODA Information and Communications Standards Development Committee outlines improvements to make information and communications accessible for people with disabilities by 2025. The Committee recommends changes to the Information and Communications Standards, to identify, remove, and prevent accessibility barriers in information. In addition, the Committee recommends an alternative system for developing, updating, and enforcing AODA standards. This new system would affect the Information and Communications Standards, as well as other existing and future standards. This article will discuss the Committee’s recommendations for gathering and analyzing accurate data about people with disabilities.
Gathering and Analyzing Accurate Data about People with Disabilities
The Committee states that methods for gathering and analyzing data can lead to discrimination on the basis of disability. For example, methods of gathering data may exclude people with certain disabilities, such as:
- A phone survey not accessible for participants who are deaf or deafblind
- Online forms that do not comply with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)
As a result, the data that researchers receive and analyze contains bias. Moreover, due to attitudinal barriers, researchers may not be aware that their data is not accurate. For example, researchers may not believe that a deaf or deafblind person would be involved in the topic they are researching. Consequently, the researcher would not recognize that the absence of responses from participants with these disabilities creates bias in their data. Moreover, the algorithms that researchers use will reproduce any bias that their creators have. Likewise, artificial intelligence (AI) makes decisions based on data that ignores the existence and involvement of people with disabilities.
Therefore, the Committee recommends disability impact assessments in the process of making decisions based on population data. These assessments would mitigate the risks of discrimination based on data bias. In addition, the government should create and work with a task force to mitigate comparable risks of discrimination in provincial digital services. This task force should consist mainly of people with a variety of disabilities who are experts in:
- New technologies
- Data analysis
The task force would also develop opportunities for gathering and analyzing accurate data about people with disabilities.