Access to electronic commerce
and new technology services by older Australians and people with a disability

Address by Professor Alice
Tay, President, Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission regarding
reference from the Attorney-General, Perth, 13 September 1999

Attorney-General
the Honourable Daryl Williams, ladies and gentlemen:

As the world awaits
the birth of the new millenium with a level of anxiety we come to associate
with expecting parents, I am pleased to note that the United Nations,
in nominating 1999 the International Year of Older Persons, has not, at
the last, forgotten the grandparents.

It is especially
appropriate, then, at this historical juncture of new and "older" ['a
polite and well-intentioned euphemism that I for one am happy with'] that
the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission should receive a reference
concerned with the relationship between our senior citizens and that sign
of the times, information technology.

That the reference's
other concern is people with disabilities is also, I believe, a sign of
the times, for information technology has the potential to transform the
way a person with almost any kind of disability can interact with society
at large.

On behalf of the
Commission, I accept the Attorney-General's reference as an opportunity
to translate some of this potential into reality.

Information technology
confronts us with a peculiar dilemma to which the Attorney-General has
already alluded: it has the dual potential to disadvantage and marginalise
those who "miss the technology bus", and to benefit and enfranchise those
who catch it. Let me offer a few comments on the down side first.

When we say that
someone "missed the bus", we don't blame the bus.

For every person
who decides, for instance, that they do not wish to become entangled in
the World Wide Web, there is someone else who sees the advantages and,
through no choice or fault of their own, is deprived of the opportunity
because the technology simply doesn't cater to their needs.

These people haven't
missed the bus; they've been left standing on the roadside in the dust
left by a juggernaut that simply won't stop.

The drive for efficiency,
"convenience" and reduced costs has spawned the ubiquitous ATM, yet on-the-street
banking rarely favours those who require wheelchair access, those who
are visually impaired, or indeed anyone who feels particularly vulnerable
to robbery.

Telephone banking
and information services are far from convenient for someone with hearing
difficulties or cognitive disabilities and can deprive the isolated of
important social contact.

New technologies
- of which email and the Internet form a significant part, but only a
part - discriminate in favour of visual interaction and, of course,
demand a whole new set of skills, which can be extremely daunting if you
haven't grown up with them.

I, like many here,
did not grow up with them, and can make no boast of proficiency with new
technologies.

The case for people
with disabilities is pretty clear, but some might argue that the elderly,
since they're no longer in the workforce, have little or no need of the
new technology.

But it's not the
elderly who are calling the shots. The technology continues to enter every
realm of our private lives, and at a rate of knots.

For instance:

• virtually every
  second Australian household had a home computer, and one in five households
  had Internet access;

• in the 12 months
  from May 98 to May 99, nearly 5.5 million adults (40% of the adult population)
  accessed the Internet, compared to 3.6 million in the previous 12 months;
  and

• shopping over
  the Internet increased by 60%.

There are financial
incentives too:

• an over-the-counter
  bank transaction costs an average $2.50 to $3.50, but only $1.00 to
  $1.50 at an ATM, and a mere 12 cents via Internet; and

• International
  Data Corp, predicts that the number of e-commerce users in the Asia-Pacific
  region, not including Japan, will grow from just over 1.1 million in
  1998 to 12.8 million in 2002.

As society goes digital,
not to have access to information technology and services is to be forced
into economic and social exile.

So far I have elaborated
how information technology can discriminate against some social groups
and threaten to marginalise them even further unless we take appropriate
action.

In human rights terms,
the right not to be disadvantaged or discriminated against are
known as "negative rights". But there are positive rights as well.
For example, The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that: Everyone
has the right freely to ... share in scientific advancement and its benefits.

So it is not only
that people will be disadvantaged if they do not have access to information
technology; they will be significantly advantaged if they do have
access. As you can see, negative and positive rights are two sides of
the same coin.

Appropriately, amongst
the principles the UN has identified for this International Year of the
Older Person, are independence, participation and self-fulfillment. As
one older person we spoke to said: "I'm 89 and pretty soon all I'll be
able to do is sit at home. I think the Internet will be a way to be in
touch with the world. That's why I've decided to go to Seniors on the
Net.."

To do full justice
to the opportunities provided by the new information technology, let me
reflect briefly on an earlier information revolution, for let's not imagine
that this one's the first.

When Johann Gutenberg
in the 1450s invented the printing press, he changed forever the way we
communicate and what we communicate.

Information became
easily reproducible, comparatively cheap and therefore available to a
more socially diverse audience than ever before. Because books are easily
portable, information became available to a more geographically diverse
audience too. A greater range of information became available.

In the fifteenth
century the printing press became the principal vehicle for the socio-religious
changes known as the Reformation. By making the Bible available in the
vernacular, instead of Latin, the technology of printing enfranchised
a far greater proportion of the population.

One of Martin Luther's
religious principles, in which he was at odds with the authoritarian teachings
of the Catholic Church, was that individuals had the right to interpret
scripture for themselves. It is no small wonder, then, - and here I condense
the next five centuries into a phrase - that the right to freedom of information,
to express oneself freely and to seek information freely, is considered
the cornerstone of human rights and of a free and democratic society.

The essential ingredient
for these developments, of course, has been literacy, which in
these days of global information-gathering is still considered a key indicator
of a nation's socio-economic development and quality of life. And now,
as we contemplate the meteoric rise of information technology, the essential
ingredient is still literacy but of a new kind.

If we were to have
any lingering doubts as to the undesirability of creating a technologically
illiterate underclass, or at any rate of apathetically allowing this to
happen, let us remember that it is the policy of totalitarian states the
world over to actively disenfranchise their citizens by making electronic
information technology inaccessible.

• The government
  of the Seychelles banned fax machines;

• In Myanmar (Burma)
  satellite television has been outlawed;

• In Malawi, under
  Dr Banda, it was declared illegal to own a television set or to listen
  to any radio broadcasts other than those of the official party station.

While the revolution
wrought by the printing press took several decades if not centuries to
mature, our own contemporary information revolution is racing along in
months, weeks, even days.

This explains the
comparative urgency of the situation and why the government's initiatives
to prevent a gulf forming between "information rich" and "information
poor" is timely and very welcome.

It is my intention
that the outcomes of this reference will bring specific individual benefits
to many people who are elderly or who live with disabilities, and in doing
so will contribute to a more inclusive society in which the opportunities
and the means to participate fully are spun ever tighter into the economic,
social and political weave of our country's fabric.

Last
updated 1 December 2001