Page full of errors and doesn’t work with most screenreaders, Vision Australia says

Blind and vision-impaired Australians have been unable to opt out of My Health Record because the website has failed a range of vision accessibility requirements, Vision Australia says.

The organisation, the country’s largest provider of low-vision services, has identified “more than a dozen ways” the My Health Record website was unusable by those with impaired vision.



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Karen Knight, Vision Australia’s general manager of advocacy, said this was making it sometimes impossible for users to opt out or to find out more about the scheme.

On Jaws, the most commonly used screenreader in Australia, the section “I do not want a My Health Record created for me” is read out as “I do not want a My Health Record created for link graphic Info Icon – Open Help for whom you do not want to register a health record me checkbox not checked”.

Australians have until 15 October to opt out of the system, which creates a digital record of a person’s medical data that can be accessed and shared by health providers. Privacy campaigners have warned users to opt out, citing the potential for security breaches and misuse.

People can opt out over the phone or online but Vision Australia said the online page was riddled with glitches and errors and did not work with most screenreaders.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Vision Australia’s report describes how the opt-out section is incorrectly read out by a screenreader

Help icons, which usually provide further information if a person hovers a mouse over them, are not read out by screenreaders. Some images – including an image of a Medicare card – also had no text for a screenreader to read out.

On high-contrast mode, used by those with low vision or colour sensitivity issues, buttons became invisible because they were the same colour as the webpage’s background.

“When you switch it on to that mode the background goes black, but the colour of the radio button doesn’t change,” said Neil King, Vision Australia’s manager of digital access. “You have no confirmation that you’ve selected the right one.”

Buttons are invisible in high-contrast mode because they are the same colour as the background

Knight said it was important that vision-impaired users got “the same access as everybody else” to opting out.

“I personally don’t want to opt out, however I went to see if I could and I couldn’t get to the end of the process,” he said. “Everyone that I have spoken to, that has had these same issues, say that they want the same access as everybody else.”

Though vision-impaired users could still opt out by calling the phone line, Knight said a call centre brought further risks of human intervention and a privacy breach.

The website also timed out too quickly and had no option for those with vision impairments to extend their session, he said.

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“When someone is using a screenreader it takes them longer,” he said. “You should give them the option to extend that. Currently, there’s no way to do it.

“You would have thought these things were checked. To get to this stage of the website, that they’ve released it without actually checking, is a real disappointment.”

A spokesman for the Australia Digital Health Agency, which oversees My Health Record, said it was investigating ways to improve the website.

“Both the My Health Record website and opt-out portal meet Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 level AA,” he said. “The agency recognises that the standard can be exceeded and we are currently investigating additional changes we can make to enable the highest possible standard of accessibility.”