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Nicole -> Information Management in Australia (7/31/2005 20:22:04)
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Jaybee's list of International Government regulations in the FAQ above is a fabulous resource for all web designers using this forum.
In the list I noticed that the link to the Australian Government's NOIE website has been changed for almost a year now, it was renamed to AGIMO (Australian Government Information Management Office in October last year, and following that redirected link i've just noticed that it's soon to be merged with another Government Department.
I'll try and not get political with this post but this Australian Government is known for it's poor attitude towards Human Rights, and this merger of Accessibility issues in web design, though not a major development for the vast majority of people seems to be just another little indication of the lack of seriousness given to this subject and Human Rights in general.
I contacted the old NOIE well over a year ago now to ask that they send me the Governments Guidelines for Website Accessibility which they freely advertised on their website, a month later it hadn't arrived so I called them and was told that it would be sent that day. I still haven't received it. How much harder do you think it'll be to get my hands on it now that this Department has been merged twice? What are the chances the person i speak with when i call will have any idea what i'm talking about?
On a slightly different matter, I've struck the same lack of response when making enquiries to the Government Departments responsible for Privacy regarding what regulations and requirements are necessary when putting a Privacy Policy on a website. i.e. How large or small does a business have to be for a Privacy Policy to be necessary, and what features like email contact and/or forms absolutely require a Privacy Policy on a site.
It seems to me that there's a serious lack of a Governing Body which REALLY deals with Information Management in this country, either nobody really knows the rules or they're just spread across too many Government Departments for it to be reasonable for a web designer to make all the necessary enquiries and get responses within reasonable timeframes.
It makes it even more difficult when Governments are readily accepting of the Internet for Business and e-commerce, banking etc, but on the same hand they're merging Departments and making it far more difficult for the people who design and develop websites to have access to the legal information they need to know.
Nicole
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