Australia Updates Accessibility Guidance for Digital Goods and Services
In April 2025, the Australian Human Rights Commission released updated guidance to help organizations ensure their digital goods and services are accessible to people with disabilities. These updates are directly tied to the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA), which makes it unlawful to discriminate against people with disabilities in the provision of goods and services.
What This Means for Businesses and Organizations
The updated guidance reinforces that accessibility is not optional. It applies to everyone, whether you’re a designer, developer, marketer, executive, educator, or small business owner. If you’re offering digital content or services in Australia, accessibility is now a legal and practical requirement.
This includes:
- Websites and intranets.
- Mobile apps.
- Emails, including attachments and signatures.
- Digital books, documents, and learning materials.
- SaaS platforms, AI tools, CAPTCHAs, and two-factor authentication systems.
Basically, if it runs on a computer or smartphone, it needs to be accessible.
Minimum Requirements: WCAG 2.2 Level AA
The Commission’s updated guidance references WCAG 2.2 (released in October 2023) as the new standard. Organizations are expected to meet at least Level AA requirements. But the document also encourages teams to go beyond the minimum by implementing additional best practices like:
- Providing video transcripts.
- Ensuring audio has sufficient contrast.
- Using clear and descriptive links.
- Organizing content with meaningful section headings.
Government Procurement and Accessibility
If you want to contract with the Australian government, accessibility is not negotiable. Government procurement guidelines now follow AS EN 301 549, with the added requirement of WCAG 2.2. That means vendors, service providers, and software developers must demonstrate accessibility if they want to do business with the public sector.
What Makes This Update Significant
This is a major shift from the earlier WCAG 2.0 standards that many organizations have followed for years. It brings Australia in line with more current global practices while setting a clear legal expectation for digital accessibility.
The standout inclusion? Intranets. While many accessibility laws in other countries skip over internal systems, Australia has made it clear that internal platforms and employee-facing systems are part of the requirement.
Key Takeaways
- If you provide digital goods or services in Australia, accessibility is a legal requirement under the DDA.
- The updated guidelines apply to nearly all forms of digital content – from websites to emails.
- WCAG 2.2 Level AA is the minimum requirement.
- Accessibility applies across all roles in an organization – not just IT.
- Government vendors must meet strict accessibility requirements.
Accessibility is no longer something to address “later.” It’s something to prioritize now.
If you’re not sure where to start, we’re here to help. At Easy A11y Guide, we provide accessible SOPs, guidance, and consulting to get your systems and processes in line, without the overwhelm.
Free Email Template to Send to Your Australian Clients
Transcript
Australia recently released updated guidance on how to make digital goods and services accessible to people. In Australia, the DDA, or Disability Discrimination Act, says that you can’t discriminate against people with disabilities with regard to goods and services.
It specifically calls out to follow the guidance from the Australian Human Rights Commission for how to do that. The Australian Human Rights Commission just released updated guidance in April 2025 to tell you how to avoid discrimination.
Updates
Here are the recent updates that are applicable to websites, mobile apps, social media, email, and other digital goods and services. The executive summary starts out with saying that the DDA makes it unlawful to discriminate against people with disabilities.
These guidelines are specifically to assist organizations in meeting their obligations under the DDA. These standards and guidelines that are listed are the minimum organizations should aim for.
The best practice is that organizations should avoid discrimination by doing their best to go above these minimums. These guidelines are for everyone, from the C-suite down to individual designers, developers, publishers, educators, and people who are operating websites, sending emails, and more.
These guidelines specifically apply to websites, including intranets. Any other laws in countries such as the United States Europe may not apply to intranets.
Intranets
But in Australia, the Commission has specifically called out intranets. And of course, the typical ones, digital documents, books, learning materials, emails, including attachments to emails, including your email signature. All of it needs to be accessible.
The Commission’s guidance specifically call out digital goods and services, which include websites, including intranets. Many Cee laws in countries such as the United States or Europe don’t include intranets, but Australia’s specifically does call out intranets.
It includes digital documents and books. It includes emails and their attachments. That means even your email signature needs to be accessible. It specifically calls out SAS systems, AI, CAPTCHAs, 2FA.
WCAG 2.2
Basically, if it is on a computer or smartphone, it needs to be accessible. In chapter 3 of this updated guidance, it specifically calls out a version of WCAG, and that is version 2.2, which was released in October of 2023. It says organizations should conform with WCAG 2.2 level double A at the minimum.
It also recommends considering items from level AA, such as video transcripts, audio contrast, clear links, and section headings. In regard to government procurement, accessibility is required when sourcing service providers, software, and vendors. This follows ASEN 301549 with the modification that WCAG 2.2 should be used.
If you want to work on any government contracts, you will need to be following WCAG 2.2 as this is part of the government procurement process. To recap, this update from Australia is a significant change from the previous 2.0 version of WCAG to the more current 2.2 version of WCAG.
This is applicable to basically everything that is happening on a computer or smartphone. This is applicable for government agencies, private businesses, nonprofit organizations, basically everyone who is offering digital goods or services on the internet.
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