[SC-CSTD] New regulations for kiosks and self-service transaction machines? We’ve been here before.

[Steve Cook]

Law Office of Lainey Feingold - Sunday, November 6, 2022 at 11:46 AM


New regulations for kiosks and self-service transaction machines? We’ve been here before.


  <https://www.lflegal.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Presto-prime-2850654_emv1-scaled-476x400.jpg> 

On September 21, 2022 the United States Access Board, a federal government agency, issued an Advanced Notice of Proposed Rule Making (ANPRM) about kiosks. <https://www.adatitleiii.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/25/2022/10/Kiosk-ANPRM.pdf>  The Notice is about the details for making self-service kiosks (alternatively referred to as self-service transaction machines (SSTMs)) independently usable by people with disabilities. 

The image accompanying this article is an example of a self-service kiosk that the ANPRM is about. It is a restaurant machine that sits on a table, offers the menu, and let’s people order and pay. These particular kiosks used at Applebees were made accessible in 2018 as a result of a Structured Negotiation <https://www.lflegal.com/2018/02/applebee-structured-negotiation/> .

The September ANPRM is basically a set of questions the Board has asked as it considers issuing a Notice of Proposed Rule Making (NPRM) which is what really gets the regulatory ball rolling. The public can submit answers to the questions by November 21, 2022. The ANPRM explains how to submit comments by email, online, or by hard copy mail.

The Summary of the ANPRM says

The Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board (‘‘Access Board’’ or ‘‘Board’’) is issuing this Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM) to begin the process of supplementing its accessibility guidelines for buildings and facilities covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 and the Architectural Barriers Act of 1968 to address access to various types of self-service transaction machines (SSTMs),including electronic self-service kiosks, for persons with disabilities.US Access Board September 2022 Kiosk and SSTMs ANPRM <https://www.adatitleiii.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/25/2022/10/Kiosk-ANPRM.pdf>  

The ANPRM says it is being issued to “begin the process” of writing new guidelines. But is this really the beginning? 

Jump to these sections of this article: 

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2010 Accessible Kiosk ANPRM


In July 2010 I posted an article on this website titled Access Board Considers ADAAG Coverage for Self-Service Kiosks <https://www.lflegal.com/2010/07/self-service/> . What was it about? You guessed it: an Access Board 2010 Advanced Notice of Proposed Rule Making about the need for self-service kiosks that people with disabilities can independently and privately use.

The 2010 article included the detailed and extensive comments that civil rights lawyer Linda Dardarian <https://gbdhlegal.com/about-us/attorneys/dardarian>  and I had submitted to the Access Board in response to questions about the need for accessible kiosks. We wrote about various types of kiosks that needed access (in healthcare, education and retail and more). We wrote about what was good and bad about the ANPRM. And we answered specific questions not unlike those in the current ANPRM. 

The 2022 ANPRM says the Board “postponed” the 2010 effort to focus its attention on the then-pending 508 “refresh.” The 508 update was finalized in 2017, and was included in my March 2017 Digital Accessibility Legal Update <https://www.lflegal.com/2017/03/update-csun17/#Section-508-Refresh> .

I remember the work that went into drafting the detailed comments captured in my 2010 article. By 2010 Linda and I and our clients in the blind community had worked with most of the country’s financial institutions to develop and install Talking ATMs, a classic example of a self-service transaction machine. (Talking ATMs, along with fare machines, are the only self-service machines with specific accessibility regulations. You can read about the history of these regulations in the article on this website titled New United States Talking ATM Regulations Now On Line <https://www.lflegal.com/2010/11/talking-atm-reg/> .) 

And we had worked with more than a dozen retailers on the issue of retail check-out devices at staffed locations (before the self-service machines of today). As told in my book <https://www.lflegal.com/book/structured-negotiation/> , we had done that work in Structured Negotiation, without lawsuits, and poured our experience as well as research into other types of kiosks into our comments. Many disability organizations submitted their own comments that year, incorporating the comments in this article that we wrote for the community. 

The number of self-service transaction machines has exploded in the dozen years since the Access Board’s first attempt to issue regulations. But disabled people’s needs for fully independent and accessible machines is the same. I hope whoever is working on comments this time around can benefit from the extensive research we did into the state of self-service kiosks at the time, and the privacy and security rights of the disability community in connection to this technology. (Please note that my article (like the last ANPRM) is twelve years old and many of the links are no longer active.)


Disabled advocates, civil rights lawyers, and kiosk manufacturers are not waiting for regulations


Regulations are important, and I hope this time around they happen. But fortunately for people with disabilities, the law (and kiosk manufacturers) are not waiting for regulations. On this website you can find an article titled Kiosk Accessibility: The Law is Paying Attention <https://www.lflegal.com/2018/01/kiosks18/> . First published in 2018, I update it with new developments in the accessible kiosk space. 

In addition to news about accessible kiosk lawsuits, settlements, and Structured Negotiations, the article has a resource section <https://www.lflegal.com/2018/01/kiosks18/#Resources-for-Accessible-Kiosks>  for those who want more information about building self-service machines that disabled people can independently use. I hope the information is useful to both the Access Board and to members of the public who want to submit comments in response to the new ANPRM. 


Other resources about the 2022 accessible kiosk ANPRM


https://www.lflegal.com/2022/11/kiosk-anprm-2022/

 

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