The Access Technology Affordability Act

Errata

In the article below, I state that no blindness specific notetaking device contained GPS, a camera or cellular data. This is incorrect, some of these devices have GPS, some have a camera and some have both. The only device in this category that I could find with cellular data included is the Freedom Scientific lBraille which I do not consider to be a notetaker but, rather, a Windows laptop in a non-standard case.

A few people who posted comments or wrote to me directly through the contact form pointed out this error to me but said they liked the article anyway. Unfortunately, I do not think this is one of my better articles. I had a different article about an entirely different topic that I had been working on for a couple of weeks that I intended to publish the day I posted this one instead. The other article was not complete and required I speak with someone to ensure I got some otherwise unverifiable details correct.

So, I had heard a little about the Access Technology Affordability Act and tried to bang out an article about it and publish it the next day. This meant I did what at best could be called cursory research into notetakers and managed to get that section wrong. Since I started blogging regularly again in December, I've been trying to publish our news digest on Tuesdays and a blog article about a single topic on Thursdays. Many of my blog articles take a fair amount of time to write, fact check, edit, get feedback from my informal editorial committee and then do the final draft; I rushed this article and the results were that I made an embarrassing mistake. I'm going to continue publishing the digest on Tuesdays but only publish blog articles when they are ready.

Also based on comments and emails I got from readers, I've changed my position and now believe that notetakers should be considered qualified access technology under this legislation. Because I use none of these devices and haven't paid much attention to them since we worked on PAC Mate at FS, I hadn't considered a number of important use cases that these devices can provide that a smartphone cannot.

Thanks to those who pointed out this problem with the story, I appreciate all feedback.

Introduction

On January 21, 2021, Congressman Mike Thompson (Democrat/California) introduced legislation in the US House Of Representatives called, "The Access Technology Affordability Act." On its surface, this sounds like a bill that would be good for blind people but, in this article, I will explain that it has both arguments for and against it and try to explore both. I honestly have very mixed feelings about this legislation and fear that this article may reflect some of my confusion. .

This article will discuss the Access Technology Affordability Act as well as what I consider to be overpriced, under-powered, feature limited devices sold for blind people to use.

The Access Technology Affordability Act

On January 21, 2021, Congressman Mike Thompson (Democrat/California) introduced legislation in the US House Of Representatives called, "The Access Technology Affordability Act." The bill is summarized as such:

"This bill allows a refundable tax credit equal to the amounts paid for qualified access technology for use by a blind individual who is the taxpayer, the taxpayer's spouse, or a dependent of the taxpayer. Qualified access technology is hardware, software, or other information technology with the primary function of converting or adapting information that is visually represented into forms or formats useable by blind individuals.

"The credit is limited to (1) costs that are not compensated by insurance or otherwise, and (2) an aggregate amount of $2,000 per blind individual in any period of three consecutive taxable years. The credit must be adjusted for inflation after 2021 and terminates after 2026."

In essence, this bill would give all blind people in the US $2000 every three years to reimburse them for having purchased some access technology for themselves. This is a refundable tax credit so, even people who pay $0 in taxes every year will qualify for the credit.

The Pros and Cons Of This Legislation

I will start by stating that I have a strong bias for blind people using as much mainstream hardware as possible and only resorting to AT when absolutely necessary. I also believe strongly that blind or otherwise disabled people should never have to spend a penny more to use the same technology as their non-disabled counterparts. I'm happy to see that a screen reader is now a feature of literally all operating systems. I've heard that Microsoft's Narrator has improved dramatically but feel that VoiceOver on Macintosh is sorely lacking and needs massive improvements. On mobile devices, all of the major OS (iOS, Android, etc.) now have good to excellent accessibility, often better than on a general purpose computer. For this article, I'll use the term "smartphone" to describe this entire class of product.

The Pros Of This Legislation

A lot of blind people have their Access Technology (AT) bought for them by an agency, their job, their university and a handful of other sources so these people won't be effected by this legislation. Of course, many of the people who have their AT paid for need to fight their employer, agency or school for months and sometimes years to get the technology they have the right to have to do their job, get an education or enjoy modern life. Just because you don't need to pay for your Access Technology doesn't mean you won't have to fight for it.

Some blind people, the self employed, those living on benefits and those with very limited disposable income will be able to enjoy this tax credit and the access technology they purchase with it. In brief, blind people will be able to afford more cool stuff which I think is a good thing. totally Blind people have an unemployment rate estimated to be between 70 and 80%. This means that a lot of blind people get their entire income from Supplemental Security Income (SSI). Living on SSI is very difficult because the amount of money in each cheque is quite small and the program doesn't permit the recipient to have any extra income. This makes purchasing access technology very difficult for these people as they simply cannot afford it.

I'm not exactly certain how the tax credit will work for one who is living on SSI. They would first need to take the money from their tiny SSI cheque, something they may not be able to afford, buy the access technology they need and then wait for their tax return to be reimbursed. How could they find a way to buy a $2000 braille display when they only receive a few hundred dollars per month?

Even with these challenges, I think that making Access Technology more available to blind people is an overall good thing and I hope a lot of people benefit from this law if it's passed.

The Cons

The first and most glaring problem I have with this legislation is that the word "blind" appears in the text alone without being in the company of its fellow disabilities. I don't understand why I, as a blind person, deserve a government entitlement to cover some or all of the cost of the Access Technology I use and people who need augmented communication devices, hearing aids, wheelchairs, scooters, software for people with learning disabilities and all of the AT designed for people with non-visual disabilities do not. If people with disabilities are seen as separate groups we will never be able to work in coalition to further the collective cause of bettering civil rights for this population.

Blind people do have some special challenges that people with other disabilities do not. Of course, people with other disabilities face issues that blind people do not. The unemployment rate among totally blind people is absurdly high but the unemployment rate for people with disabilities collectively is also quite high. This is a tough set of problems and I think working with disability groups representing those who are not blind will lead to more success than trying to go it alone.

Qualified Access Technology

In the summary of this legislation, it describes "qualified access technology" as being, "Qualified access technology is hardware, software, or other information technology with the primary function of converting or adapting information." This is far too ambiguous and could result in AT companies selling products of questionable value in order to cash in on these shiny new tax credits.

Until the operating system publishers like Microsoft, Apple and Google release screen readers with the power and full feature set of a JAWS or NVDA, I think that screen readers should be qualified AT. At this point in time, Macintosh accessibility has gotten so bad that I'm moving back to Windows later this month, Narrator has improved a lot but is still some distance from JAWS or NVDA and I don't know anything at all about ChromeVox but expect it's no JAWS or NVDA either. I would say that the same is true for magnifiers like ZoomText as none of the out-of-the-box solutions offer anything resembling its quality and feature set. So, if it was up to me, screen readers and magnification software definitely qualify.

I would also consider braille displays to be qualified access technology. A braille display has no mainstream alternative and no possible reason for any company outside of the Access Technology industry to build one. The profit margins on braille displays are pretty high but compared to other federal spending buying access technology for every blind person in the nation would be a drop in the bucket.

Products I Don't Think Should Qualify

For a lot of years, especially when I was writing the BlindConfidential blog, I have railed against the high prices of access technology in general and, most specifically, about devices known as notetakers. A notetaker is a device for a blind person to use that may or may not contain a braille display. Notetakers are mobile devices that have either a braille or a QWERTY keyboard and output information in speech or braille.

Taking a quick look around the blindness business, I have found that there are a number of these devices on the market and that, based on what they can do, they are all overpriced. These days, one can get a decent smartphone for about $100, I use an iPhone SE for which I paid something like $400. One can get any number of blue tooth QWERTy keyboards online that will work with their smartphone for a wide range of prices starting as low as $25. If one prefers a braille keyboard, they can get the Orbit Writer Smartphone Keyboard for about $140 and I would consider this keyboard to be qualified AT. Using the off-the-shelf hardware instead of a proprietary device designed specifically for blind people saves a lot of money but, as I write below, also offers more flexibility and a far greater set of features.

Using the mainstream devices also has a lot of other advantages. When I looked around at blind specific notetakers, I noticed that there were a number of important features missing. I don't think I saw a single one of these devices providing a cellular data feature so you can be online when out and about. There is a good reason for this, passing the FCC testing requirements to sell a communications device in the US is a grueling and expensive process that can be done easily by companies like Apple, Google, Amazon or Samsung but would be too costly and time consuming for companies like Freedom Scientific and Humanware.

I also noticed that none that I found had a camera. Thus, one cannot use such a notetaker to perform OCR, object identification or color detection and, because they lack cellular data, a user cannot employ either Aira or Be My Eyes.

Lastly, I noticed that none of the devices I found had a GPS chip in it. Way-finding via GPS has become an important part of how a lot of blind people find their way around and this is impossible with one of these proprietary notetakers.

Cellular data, a camera and GPS are standard features on all but some real oddball mainstream smartphones. With a standard smartphone, you get the way-finding features, you (obviously) get the cellular features, you get a camera and you get tens of thousands of apps, many of which are accessible. Mainstream smartphones are also upgraded pretty often so, when you feel like you need something newer or better, you can just replace the smartphone and continue using your keyboard and anything else you bought for your mobile computing needs. In brief, compared to a mainstream smartphone, the high price, low feature proprietary notetakers are, in my opinion, obsolete and should not be considered qualified access technology under this legislation.

People Who Use Notetakers

My opinion of notetaker devices designed specifically for blind people is about the technology alone and does not reflect on my opinion of blind people who employ such devices. I know a fair number of highly accomplished blind people who use one notetaker or another and also carry a smartphone with them everywhere they go. These are smart people who happen to have a preference for notetakers and I respect their purchasing decisions even if they are very different from my own.

What About Price Hikes?

If I remember correctly, a personal version of JAWS now costs $100 per year to license. If this bill passes, Freedom Scientific could raise the price of the personal license to considerably more per year and the blind consumer will be reimbursed in their tax return so probably wouldn't notice the difference much. Other Access Technology companies can take this calculus into play and find ways to maximize their profits using these tax credits as well. In brief, this could be an enormous taxpayer funded handout to the AT industry who will then even have less incentive to be innovative.

Conclusions##

I am sure that the Access Technology Affordability Act was introduced as legislation with nothing but good intentions. Access Technology for blind people is pretty expensive and this bill hopes to make purchasing such easier for blind consumers. This legislation has both positives and negatives. It will certainly help out some, maybe even many blind people. Given the current state of the US Congress, though, I doubt this bill will pass into law as this congress can't pass gas successfully.

Afterword

First, I'd like to thank Aaron Espinosa and Mike Calvo for helping me with ideas and criticism of early drafts of this article. It changed pretty substantially based on their input.

I'd also like to state that this isn't the most clear article I've ever written. As I say at the start, I have very mixed feelings and some mixed up thoughts on this legislation. I wrote what I thought was interesting about it but I also pick on notetakers again which probably wasted time and space. Please do leave comments on this article so I can make others in the future better.

–End