The following article comes from atmmagazine.com. It demonstrates current
attitudes in the atm and banking industries about access by the blind to
atm's. The article rehashes the same statements, arguments, and concerns
expressed at the October 25 meeting on atm access sponsored by the
U.S. Access Board. It is ironic that the American Banker's Association
says that account balance is not necessary for a talking atm. it is
currently available on hundreds of Bank of America and Wells Fargo
machines and will be available on hundreds more by year end. It is
important to realize that access gained can easily be taken away. This
will not happen. We are vigilant and resistant and will keep our ground.
kelly
from atmmarketplace.com
Access For All
by James Bickers January 16, 2001
On Jan. 26, a select group of banking industry officials, ATM
professionals and blind advocacy groups will come together at a
private meeting in Washington, D.C. The meeting is being hosted by the
American Bankers Association, and the agenda will be the ongoing
effort to make ATMs more accessible to the blind community.
According to Nessa Feddis, senior federal counsel for the American
Bankers Association, roughly 30 people have been invited to the
meeting. "ATM representatives -- the major vendors like NCR and
Fujitsi and Triton -- E*TRADE will be there, a number of different
bankers, ATM software makers, and a couple of ATM networks," she says.
"And of course the blind representatives such as the National
Federation of the Blind, and the American Council of the Blind.
"Were trying to find out where weve got common ground, and try to work
off that, because at this point the industry is certainly willing to
go along with making ATMs provide some sort of voice," says Feddis.
"There are some options, and some difficulties. For instance, you
might not be able to easily provide account balances -- so we need to
find out how necessary that is, given that you can currently call on
the telephone and get your account balance."
Banks and ATM manufacturers have been largely prompted to work on this
issue by a handful of lawsuits filed since the Americans with
Disabilities Act (ADA) was enacted roughly 10 years ago.
"I would love to see a good, strong direction for federal guidelines
that are more mature than the ones that we currently have, and that
stand a chance of superceding some of the state regulatory
developments that have occurred in the last few years," says Ernest
Burdette, president and CEO of Triton Systems. "For us as a
manufacturer doing business all across the country, its a bit
frustrating to have to deal with different requirements in different
jurisdictions. I think it can work to the advantage of all of us."
"Our short term hope [for this meeting] would be that we can come
together as an industry and with members of the blind community to
develop a set of operating standards that can accommodate the needs of
the blind, but do so in a way that is economically viable," according
to Tim Walker, assistant counsel for E*TRADE Access, the ATM-operating
subsidiary of E*TRADE Bank. "That involves regulatory questions, but
primarily technology -- fundamentally, its a technology problem.
"E*TRADE Access is committed to providing fair and equal access to
everybody," Walker says, "but we need to be able to do it in such a
way that it works over the complicated network structure of ATMs. The
ATM network infrastructure has been in place for a very long time, and
a lot of it is not exactly cutting-edge technology. The fact is, most
ATMs in the field are not modern PCs -- they are much less
sophisticated.
"The hope is that were going to get our engineers together at this
meeting -- were sending our tech guys. This isnt about getting the
lobbyists together, as much as it is getting the engineers together.
Obviously the blind groups are interested in having this as quickly as
possible. We want it as quickly as possible too, but within the
practical realities of the world in which we operate."
Curtis Chong is director of technology for the National Federation of
the Blind, an organization which has been active in this fight. He is
guardedly optimistic about the meeting.
"First of all, I would hope that whoever was there representing the
bankers would be in a position to make commitments that they would
honor," says Chong. "You need some assurances that the people you are
talking to are not there just to explore what youre thinking, but are
there to make a commitment they can follow through on. If they cant
make that commitment, what value is there in the discussion?
"ATMs should be made accessible, and that should be affordable. I
would add one qualification: we learned through our experiences with
the Diebold corporation that much of the solution that the industry
had adopted, as a sort of first stab at addressing this problem, was
one which ultimately would prove difficult to implement and costly to
build." (Diebold was one of the defendants in a lawsuit brought by the
NFB in May of last year.)
Chong feels that early efforts at establishing "talking ATMs" were not
as successful as they could have been, chiefly because the developers
werent fully considering who their audience was.
"When the first talking ATMs were developed, they used human speech,"
says Chong. "Somebody had to record scripts for each and every screen
on the machine. We have now begun to talk with people about the
concept of using synthetic speech instead, something which blind
people are used to. Now, a sighted person who is not used to
listening, will listen to synthetic speech and will say, this is
terrible. But we have to remember who we are targeting."
One of the biggest hurdles that the industry will face is that of
retrofitting. Making sure that newly manufactured machines have
accessibility features is one thing; but modifying the thousands upon
thousands of existing ATMs will most likely be a logistical, technical
and financial nightmare.
"From an industry perspective, retrofitting is the 800-pound gorilla,"
says Walker. "And a lot of that gets into legal complexities. The
proposal that was put forth by the federal access board was a little
too broad sweeping for the industrys taste. The goals are admirable,
and we want to achieve that goal, but its a question of how to achieve
that goal in a practical fashion."
"For us a manufacturer, its logistically simpler to think of using
technology to improve our products and make them more accessible,"
says Burdette. "In fact, thats a key part of some products well be
announcing later this year. So Id favor that approach. But having said
that, there are a lot of existing machines, probably 50,000 of our
machines worldwide -- and if you look at the other manufacturers, that
represents a lot of installations. But the cost of making
improvements, once a machine is already installed, is greatly
magnified. So it becomes an economic issue. The point is, if you take
a certain number of dollars that can be justified to make products
more accessible, youre going to get more bang for your buck by
applying those dollars to new products."
"I think some retrofitting is in order," according to Chong. "How
much, would have to be negotiated. Zero is not an acceptable option.
Part of the problem is that theres got to be some talking. If you
talk, maybe you can arrive at a retrofitting schedule that everybody
can agree to."
According to Chong, another worrisome point is the fact that most of
the emphasis is being placed on making traditional ATMs accessible. He
feels that developers of next-generation ATMs, the much-anticipated
machines which will allow everything from Internet access to stock
trading, should focus on making those machines accessible from the
very beginning.
"Somethings got to change," he says. "The architecture theyre
currently using is not workable in the long run. We cannot limit
ourselves to thinking of the traditional ATM, which is what all the
fuss has been about. ATMs are clearly going to get smarter. Theyre
building all these new things, but are only giving thought to how to
make the traditional ATM accessible. They have to give thought to
those things now, not later when somebody sues them."
"One of the big issues is the effect on existing ATMs and how that
goes forward," says Feddis. "But also, were trying to look down the
road so that as new products develop, they are developed with blind
users in mind. Its easier when youre designing new products to put in
voice rather than trying to retrofit. So were trying to reach an
agreement on the immediate problem, but also going ahead."
Nobody on either side of this issue expects quick and easy answers.
But the ABA-sponsored meeting looks to be one more step in the
direction of fair access for all users.
"When you look at it from a consumer standpoint, weve been waiting
around for ten years or so since the ADA was passed," says Chong. "And
were growing tired of waiting. Will something good come out of the
meeting? I sure hope it does."
VICUG-L is the Visually Impaired Computer User Group List.
To join or leave the list, send a message to
[log in to unmask] In the body of the message, simply type
"subscribe vicug-l" or "unsubscribe vicug-l" without the quotations.
VICUG-L is archived on the World Wide Web at
http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/vicug-l.html
|