At the Virginia General Assembly, the disAbility Law Center of Virginia supports options that promote greater access to technology for people with disabilities, and therefore greater access to independence and self-determination. One technology bill that might have improved choices for people with disabilities was defeated in a subcommittee on Monday. Other important bills are still under consideration:
- HB 2021 (Seibold) was defeated in the subcommittee Monday morning. The bill would have required that virtual assistants, like Alexa, may have voice purchasing only as an opt-in feature. Currently, the feature is there by default. Constituents testified that their children made purchases accidentally and they learned about those purchases only after many months. There was testimony that it is very difficult to disable that function. Tech companies, most notably Amazon, opposed the bill. The bill was tabled.
- HB 2219 (Tran) and SB 1034 (Pekarsky) are proceeding positively. The bills require any individualized education program for a student with a disability who uses augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) to describe and document that use and any support needs, prior to the provision of instruction. The bill also has a timeline for training. The House Bill was approved by the Education Committee and has been on the House floor twice. The Senate Bill was approved by the Committee on Education and Health and has been heard on the Senate floor.
- Delegate Tran has been promoting a bill similar to this year’s HB 2541 (Tran) for many years. The bill updates the Information Technology Access Act to improve digital accessibility for all persons with disabilities. This applies to government and public entities and requires the appointment of a digital accessibility coordinator responsible for developing and implementing the entity’s digital accessibility policy. The bill has delayed effective dates of April 24, 2026, and April 26, 2027. The bill was approved by the House Committee on Communications, Technology, and Innovation and referred to Appropriations.
dLCV is available to educate policymakers about the impact of ongoing legislation on people with disabilities. If you know of something we should be following, please let us know at ga@dlcv.org.