In yet another attempt to become the “One Browser to Rule Them All,” Google is adding the ability to Chrome for screen reader users to ask for automated alt text for images. “Oh hey, since we’re not allowed to explicitly track screen reader usage, let’s just set up a honeypot to get screen reader users to just hand the information over.” I can’t wait to have to once again make a choice between privacy and accessibility. My life-long dream has always been to live in a database controlled by Google simply because I’m a screen reader user. I can see it now. Some company like Aira would absolutely love to get their hands on that kind of advertising data, and Google will gleefully hand it to them for the right price. Dear fellow developers, screw you for abandoning alt text like yesterday’s leftover fast food.
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Just FYI, Chrome (even Firefox) can already detect you’re running a screen reader. They don’t need the image recognition feature to do that.
Yeah we can definitely detect . and we wouldn’t need to build a needlessly large feature to do that. Plus all of the code on the front end at least is open source, in the back end code is governed by privacy policies.
None of the data sent to them is sent with any account info.
I have to ask what is wrong with tracking user-agents? We already do for all others. WCAG already classifies AT as user-agents. Screen reader use is not protected even if disability is. If features can be enabled based on such status without degrading a11y for others why not
This: https://www.disabilityscoop.com/2019/03/28/facebook-charged-disability-discrimination/26293/
Tracking screen readers specifically risks exposing health data, (in this case, disability status).