Sign language policy (live)
Group: images-and-media • Guideline: sign-language
Summary in Plain English
An organisational assertion: the organisation states that it has a policy of providing sign language interpretation at live in-person, hybrid and online events, and publishes how and by when interpretation can be requested.
Why It Matters
Live interpretation has to be booked ahead. A published route and deadline is what makes attendance possible rather than a matter of luck.
Test Procedure from the W3C Draft
Upstream has a test heading for this provision but has not written the procedure yet, and no test steps have been written here. Generic advice would apply to almost any provision, so none is shown.
W3C Working Group Status
The draft records no open editors' notes on this provision.
W3C Threads on This Provision
2 GitHub threads carrying 7 comments, fetched from w3c/wcag3 by the tracker. Titles, numbers and states are the threads' own.
⚠️ This summary is stale — comments landed after it was written.
What the Argument Is About
Whether live sign language interpretation belongs in WCAG 3 as an organisational assertion at all, or should be a supplemental requirement — asked once, answered by nobody, and closed.
Positions taken in the thread
Questions whether "We provide sign language interpretation for all live audio content" should be a supplemental requirement rather than an assertion (#471). The issue states no reasoning beyond the question itself. Filed in December 2025 with no body beyond the question, no comments, and closed in June 2026.
In #325, distinguishes sign language interpretation — real-time signing used in live contexts — from translation prepared in advance, and argues the draft does not separate them. Places live interpretation at Silver where appropriate, and at Gold as high-quality interpretation with cultural and linguistic appropriateness alongside multilingual captions. Writing as a Deaf person, argues that anything short of a defined requirement leaves organisations relying on captions alone, and that requiring it is what builds the currently limited pool of qualified interpreters.
Supports the proposal and pushes past it, calling for a supplemental requirement that sign language users have a signed alternative for website text. Cites jurisdictions that already require sign language interpreting or translation in some public or official contexts: the ADA's auxiliary aids and services duty for US public entities, the UK's BSL Act 2022, BSL (Scotland) Act 2015 and Equality Act 2010, Ireland's Irish Sign Language Act 2017, South Korea's Korean Sign Language Act 2016, New Zealand's NZSL Act 2006, and Filipino Sign Language mandates — alongside language-discrimination treaties, framing information in a preferred language as a reasonable accommodation. Its first-listed rationale is the same as InfoGapBuster's: millions rely on sign language as their first, preferred or only accessible language.
Gold is probably achievable without meeting everything at that level, and none of Bronze, Silver or Gold has been finalised, so no definitive statement about placing sign language in a level is possible yet. Unrebutted; the thread continued assigning levels anyway.
Agreed
- Live interpretation and prepared translation are distinct things the current draft does not distinguish — InfoGapBuster's framing drew no objection.
- GreggVan's caution that the conformance levels are not finalised went unrebutted, though InfoGapBuster and md84419 continued proposing level placements.
- Captions alone do not give equitable access to Deaf users whose first language is signed.
Still open
- Whether this stays an assertion or becomes a supplemental requirement — MakotoUeki's #471 question never received a substantive answer on the record.
- Whether live sign language interpretation becomes a required criterion rather than a policy statement, which is InfoGapBuster's underlying ask in #325.
- md84419's observation that #325 is filed under Image and Media Alternatives but is really about text alternatives, and probably needs a new section under Text and Wording.
Note
#471 was closed in June 2026 with zero comments, so no reasoning for the assertion-versus-supplemental question that is most specific to this provision appears on the record. Everything else here comes from #325, a multi-provision proposal in which live interpretation is only one part.
WCAG 2.2 Criteria That Map Here
From this site's reviewed WCAG 2.2 → WCAG 3 map. The map is an interpretation, not a W3C mapping: W3C has not published one yet.
No mapping recorded. No WCAG 2.2 criterion in this site's map is recorded as a predecessor of this provision.
W3C Raw Source Text
Verbatim from guidelines/groups/images-and-media/sign-language/sign-language-policy-live.md · informative document: informative/guidelines/images-and-media/sign-language/sign-language-policy-live.md
[Title, role, or organization] asserts that:
* Our organization has a policy to provide sign language interpretation for live in-person, hybrid, and fully online events/meetings.
::assertion-required
* title, role, or organization making the assertion (with contact information)
* date of assertion (if different from the date of the conformance claim)
* date the policy was last reviewed/updated
* how sign language interpretation can be requested
* format: email, phone, contact form
* timeline/deadline for requesting (maybe just the average timeline)
::assertion-recommended
* approved vendors and contact information
* steps for hosting on each platform used
* versioned communications guide for announcing sign language availability for each meeting/event