Changes in the Finnish Supervisory Authority
November 17, 2024 | AccessibilityAt the moment there are two Supervisory Authorities in Finland: digital accessibility is monitored by the Regional State Administrative Agency and physical accessibility by Traficom.
The European Accessibility Act brought in new requirements for both digital accessibility and physical accessibility. This brought in a discussion about centralising the supervisory duties.
Starting 1.1.2025, Traficom will be taking care of all supervisory duties. The Supervisory Authority personnel from AVI will move to Traficom so there will be many familiar faces.
Having all accessibility supervision under one roof will make things much easier for the end users. We no longer need to contact multiple authorities but can instead reach out to a single point of contact.
Update your accessibility statement with the new contact details
Because the Supervisory Authority will be different, also the contact details will be different.
They don't know yet what the details will be, so follow their site Saavutettavuusvaatimukset for the updates. They did mention that very likely there will be a redirect from the old email to a new one, so people's feedback will not be lost. But if you want to look better than many people/companies, be sure to update the information as soon as it's available. You can add the change date and the new contact information together with the current information, you don't have to be working on your day off to add the information.
Update your accessibility statement at least once a year
Finally, I have black on white about the accessibility statement requirements. The Supervisory Authority said in the Saavuta 2024 event that the accessibility statement should be checked and updated at least once a year. This also means that you should be auditing the site for accessibility.
The statement should optimally be updated every time a change is made on the site - it can be a fix or it can be a newly discovered issue. But now it has been officially said that it must be done at least once a year.