Forthcoming regulations intended to make automated teller machines easier for the blind to use may prove more burdensome than helpful to banks.
The rules, included in disability guidelines issued by the federal government’s Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance (or “Access”) Board, will not be enacted for six months to a year. But some advocates for the blind say they may be too technical when they come down and that such overspecification will encumber ATM owners.
According to the April 2002 version of the proposal (the only one publicly available), the government is still considering such specifications as the placement of a raised circle on the ATM’s “Enter” key and a raised left arrow on the “Correct” key.
Daniel Goldstein, a partner in the Baltimore law firm of Brown Goldstein & Levy LLP and an attorney for the National Federation of the Blind Inc., said the new rules should address the overall effect of increased accessibility instead of trying to implement technical ATM specifications.
Some of the proposed rules assume ATM technology that has been superseded, Mr. Goldstein said. If they become finalized in that form, banks could end up being “straitjacketed by the regulations they asked for,” he said.
Many banks, especially large ones — some under the threat of litigation brought by advocacy groups such as Mr. Goldstein’s — have already upgraded their ATM fleets to make them accessible. David L. Petro, the executive vice president of ICBA Bancard, said that only about 2% of its 5,000 member banks have voice-activated ATMs; another 10% are “actively” seeking to install them, he said. (The Arlington, Va., outfit is the payment services subsidiary of the Independent Community Bankers of America.)
Manufacturers equip most new machines with voice-activation features that can be used for blind-friendly services. Bank of America Corp., which has worked with advocates of the blind to develop voice-activated machines, declined to comment about the guidelines, saying it was still reviewing them.
Sources said the proposed rules provide enough exceptions that banks will only have to implement the specifications during the course of their normal upgrades. Advocates for the blind said that the industry requirements to upgrade ATMs with Triple DES encryption standards over the next year will compel most if not all financial institutions to comply with the accessibility rules.
James McLaughlin, the director of regulatory affairs for the American Bankers Association, defended the rules.
“We wanted some specificity,” he said. “If they don’t tell us what the rules are, we can’t comply with them. We always get into debates when the rules are not clear.”
Mr. McLaughlin said he is satisfied with the rules as they currently appear, but the Office of Management and Budget will be reviewing them for the next three months, after which the Justice Department will open a comment period of at least 30 days.
Curtis Chong, the president of the National Federation of the Blind’s computer science division, who helped draft the provisions in the guidelines, said banks that have already upgraded their ATMs may not have to worry as long as their machines are accessible.
A machine “might technically be in violation, but we’re not going to go after them as long as we’re able to do our business on those machines,” Mr. Chong said. “That’s the key thing.”
Others say there are privacy issues. Del Tonguette, the debit product manager for ICBA Bancard, said that under a system supplying the blind with headsets to use ATMs, those waiting behind the blind person might be able to overhear the synthetic voice disclosing financial information.
Most agreed that the rules will not be perfect. “Let’s make it as good as we can for as many people as we can,” said Rob Evans, the director of industry marketing for the ATM maker NCR Corp. of Dayton, Ohio. “Someone is going to be inconvenienced by someone else’s convenience.”
The National Federation of the Blind is suing E-Trade Financial Corp. over insufficient accessibility of its ATMs. It claims that the New York company refused to upgrade the 13,000 machines that are a part of its network but that E-Trade does not own.
E-Trade said it does not comment on pending litigation. Last year it reached an agreement with Mr. Goldstein’s group and Massachusetts to upgrade all 2,300 of its ATMs over a period of two and a half years.
