Illinois State Accessibility Law

Get up to date on Illinois state accessibility law, including caption law and requirements!

In the last several posts, we have looked at Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act and its impact on state accessibility laws. We saw how California requires state entities to comply with the federal accessibility requirements outlined in 508. We also looked at how New York merged parts of Section 508 with WCAG standards to create its accessibility policies.

In our fourth installment of our review of state caption compliance, we will look at the Illinois Information Technology Accessibility Act (IITAA). The IITAA strives to outline Illinois state accessibility law and define precise principles to help Illinois create proactive standards.

State Entities Only

IITAA only applies to state agencies and public universities. Local governments, community colleges, and public school districts do not have to adhere to IITAA. This is different from what we saw in New York and California accessibility policies.

IITAA standards also apply to information technology that has been created, modified or purchased since August 20, 2008. Content from before that date does not have to comply with IITAA.

Caption Decoder Circuitry and Captions

Illinois state accessibility law requires caption decoder circuitry for specific televisions and computer monitors. Caption decoder circuitry creates closed captions for DVD, videotape, cable and broadcast signals. The devices that need caption decoder circuitry include:

• Analog TV displays 13 inches or larger.
• Computer equipment that uses analog TV displays or circuitry.
• Widescreen digital TV displays (DTV) 8 or 13 inches.
• Computer equipment that uses DTV displays or circuitry.

In addition to caption decoder circuitry, Illinois requires that all multimedia or video content that includes audio for public or internal use include captions.

Updates and Resources

Illinois provides many beneficial resources to help understand and adhere to the Information Technology Accessibility Act. You can access links to these resources here. Helpful resources include:

• The Illinois Center for Instructional Technology Accessibility (CITA) has many resources available.
• Functional Accessibility Evaluator.
• Accessibility Best Practices.
• The Illinois Assistance Technology Program contact.

Because of possible federal changes to Section 508 and the introduction of WCAG 2.0, Illinois may revise IITAA. You may want to monitor the Illinois DHS page on IITAA to keep abreast of any new revisions. And for the fifth installment of this series, we will look at Texas and its caption and accessibility standards.

In the meantime, you can try complimentary video captioning to test it out. If you are looking for more information on Illinois state accessibility law, sign up for our newsletter.

Additional accessibility links:

• The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Highlights and Overview
• The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
• IDEA overview and history
• Guidance from the U.S. Department of Education
• Section 508 Compliance Overview
• Summary of 508 Compliance PDF
• Section 508 Guide for E-learning and Multimedia Technology
• GSA Tutorials, Guidance and Checklists for multimedia
• Alliance for Technology Access 
• Equal Access: Design of Distance Education Learning Program
• ADA, Title III Regulations