Multimedia policy matrix

The policy matrix tables below list Government of Canada requirements for captions, transcripts, audio description and sign language, across pre-recorded and live media broadcast on the web.

The Government of Canada Standard on Web Accessibility will soon be deprecated. It will be replaced by the upcoming ICT Accessibility Standard. The new ICT Accessibility Standard states that public-facing and internal-facing web content must meet the EN 301 549 (European Standard for Digital Accessibility).

EN 301 549 is updated to adopt the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 (level AA) for web content, electronic documents, and non-web software. The Guideline on Making Information Technology Usable by All also requires that web content conform to EN 301 549 and WCAG 2.1 level AA. There are no exceptions to WCAG 2.1 AA.

These tables assume a Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 Level AA conformance target, with some variation for government policy:

• Captions or a transcript is required for live audio-only. This is WCAG 2.1 level AAA requirement, but is required by ESDC internal policy.

* Videos designed with integrated descriptions (see audio methods, below) do not need audio descriptions