In an Op-Ed published on The Hill, Loretta Herrington of the World Institute on Disability expressed support for the establishment of “quality standards” for new Federal Communications Commission (FCC) conditional approval of Internet Protocol Captioned Telephone Service (IP CTS) providers that utilize only automatic speech recognition (ASR) technology. Two letters were sent to the FCC supporting these standards: One from Reps. Jim Langevin (D-RI) and Don Young (R-Alaska), co-chairs of the Bipartisan Disabilities Caucus, and one from Sens. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) and Jerry Moran (R-Kan.)
The ruling has been controversial, in part, because some argue that the “functional equivalence” between ASR and the current use of live captioning assistants (CAs) is undefined; there is currently no common standard for caption quality under the American with Disabilities Act (ADA). A more detailed look at the issues appears in a 2018 online article in Hearing Review.
According to the article, “In June 2018, the FCC determined that ASR is permissible to deliver captioned telephone service based on a study conducted by the MITRE Corporation,” an analysis for which some have criticized as being too small and not representative of real-life communicative conditions.
To read the article in its entirety, please click here.
Source: The Hill
