Digital Equality - An inquiry into UK digital accessibility regulations

The impact of COVID-19 has highlighted the rising significance which the digital space has within social, economic and political spheres. This shift from a physical to a digital society bears great advantages in terms of remote working and greater online connectiveness. Nonetheless, in this time of change old, vested barriers in the physical world must not be replicated in the digital world for disabled people in the UK.

In this thesis, I aim to take the UK's Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018 as an example to showcase the impact of Martha Minow's social-relations approach (1990) in the digital space. In particular, regarding the recognition of difference as well as avoiding the sameness dichotomy. I will utilise Minow's line of thought in two ways, firstly, to show the difficulties misconceptions of equality and disability have caused to date in UK digital accessibility law, and secondly, how Minow's social-relations approach can be used to expand equal access in the web. This could be done by perceiving equality and disability no longer purely through a medicalised formalistic lens, but through a social and substantive as well as transformative and human rights lens.

I conclude by suggesting, that this work is not intended to solve any major debates within the spheres of digital access, equality and disability, as these are incredibly wide ranging and complex. Nonetheless, I hope to show the importance of further research in this area and provide readers with a first glance into digital accessibility from a disability and equality perspective whilst also drawing on my own first-hand lived experiences as a disabled researcher.