GSA's Governmentwide Section 508 Assessment — US Federal Digital Accessibility Self-Reporting, and the FY24 Dip

Under Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act, GSA periodically assesses how US federal agencies meet ICT accessibility requirements. For FY24, 245 reporting entities (24 CFO Act parent agencies, 158 components and 63 small or independent agencies) answered 103 criteria through an online submission tool; submissions were due on 31 July 2024 and the report was released on 19 December 2024. GSA's own page notes the data are self-reported.
Headline results: GSA says about one-third or less of top-viewed websites, documents and videos are fully conformant. Federal News Network reports that governmentwide conformance declined year on year, with only 23% of top-visited public websites and 20% of intranet pages fully conforming. 11% of agencies had no Section 508 program manager (down from 21% in FY23), but 46% said they only sometimes or never verified the accessibility of purchased IT.
Why it matters: it is one of the few national, repeated, agency-level accessibility scorecards, and it is candid about a decline and about procurement as the weak point. Limits: self-reported data, not independent audit; the figures above for 23%, 20%, 46% and 11% come from press coverage of the report rather than from the pages we could read in full.

Read the full analysis: https://www.section508.gov/manage/section-508-assessment/2024/introduction/