Source: OJ L 277, 27/10/2022, p. 1–102Current language: EN
- Digital services act
Basic legislative acts
- DSA regulation
Article 47 Codes of conduct for accessibility
Summary What does Article 47 of the DSA regulation say?
This article tasks the Commission with encouraging and facilitating the creation of voluntary codes of conduct at Union level, focused specifically on improving access to online services for persons with disabilities.
It sits alongside similar provisions in Articles 45 and 46, which address codes of conduct for systemic risks and online advertising transparency respectively, following the same general model of Commission-led, voluntary industry engagement.
The article sets out the accessibility objectives these codes should pursue and includes concrete target dates for their development and application.
Important points:
- The Commission is required to encourage and facilitate the drawing up of accessibility-focused codes of conduct, involving online platform providers, civil society organisations, and relevant authorities.
- The codes must pursue accessibility goals including making services perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust for persons with disabilities, as well as making regulatory information under this Regulation easy to find and accessible.
- The Commission must encourage development of these codes by 18 February 2025 and their application by 18 August 2025.
Springlex's summary of the article is a reading aid, not a substitute for the legal text.
The Commission shall encourage and facilitate the drawing up of codes of conduct at Union level with the involvement of providers of online platforms and other relevant service providers, organisations representing recipients of the service and civil society organisations or relevant authorities to promote full and effective, equal participation, by improving access to online services that, through their initial design or subsequent adaptation, address the particular needs of persons with disabilities.
The Commission shall aim to ensure that the codes of conduct pursue the objective of ensuring that those services are accessible in compliance with Union and national law, in order to maximise their foreseeable use by persons with disabilities. The Commission shall aim to ensure that the codes of conduct address at least the following objectives:
designing and adapting services to make them accessible to persons with disabilities by making them perceivable, operable, understandable and robust;
explaining how the services meet the applicable accessibility requirements and making this information available to the public in an accessible manner for persons with disabilities;
making information, forms and measures provided pursuant to this Regulation available in such a manner that they are easy to find, easy to understand, and accessible to persons with disabilities.
The Commission shall encourage the development of the codes of conduct by 18 February 2025 and their application by 18 August 2025.
Relevant recitals
Recital 105 Accessibility codes of conduct for disabilities
The codes of conduct should facilitate the accessibility of very large online platforms and very large online search engines, in compliance with Union and national law, in order to facilitate their foreseeable use by persons with disabilities. In particular, the codes of conduct could ensure that the information is presented in a perceivable, operable, understandable and robust way and that forms and measures provided pursuant to this Regulation are made available in a manner that is easy to find and accessible to persons with disabilities.
Springlex and this text is meant purely as a documentation tool and has no legal effect. No liability is assumed for its content. The authentic version of this act is the one published in the Official Journal of the European Union.
Definition
recipient of the service
Definition
persons with disabilities
Definition
information society service
Definition
intermediary service
- a ‘mere conduit’ service, consisting of the transmission in a communication network of information provided by a recipient of the service, or the provision of access to a communication network;
- a ‘caching’ service, consisting of the transmission in a communication network of information provided by a recipient of the service, involving the automatic, intermediate and temporary storage of that information, performed for the sole purpose of making more efficient the information's onward transmission to other recipients upon their request;
- a ‘hosting’ service, consisting of the storage of information provided by, and at the request of, a recipient of the service;
Definition
online platform
Definition
online search engine