The vast majority of official Internet home pages discriminate against the disabled, the equal opportunities watchdog says. A survey by the Equal Opportunities Commission found that 130 out of 163 government and tertiary institutions home pages failed the Bobby Test - an internationally adopted standard on Web accessibility for disabled people. Only one out of 12 government bodies, four of 12 policy bureaus, 15 of 59 government departments, and 13 of 38 government-related organisations passed the test. None of the tertiary institutions passed. It was also found that only 14.7 per cent of the Web sites provided a text-only mode for the visually impaired. Text-only allows the visually impaired to skip images and graphics that increase reading difficulty. The Web sites also lacked transcripts for audio files, limiting access to those with hearing impairments. It has urged the Government to address the issue and hopes the problems will be rectified within six months. 'We hope the Government will take a lead in getting rid of the obstacles,' said spokesman Sam Ho Hon-sum. A spokesman for the Home Affairs Bureau said the Government had been revamping its homepages to make them easy for the disabled to use. Under the disability discrimination ordinance it is unlawful to discriminate against disabled people by not providing the same service as that provided to those without disabilities.
