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Website and application accessibility regulations and guidance

Public sector organisations need to think about accessibility at every stage and ensure they meet the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.1) design principles. The Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) Accessibility Regulations 2018 are now active and applicable to all public sector organisations, including policing, and this guidance has been created to support organisations meeting the requirements for all new and existing websites or applications.

The guidance is split into several sections:

1. Decide how to check the accessibility problems on your website or mobile app
2. Make a plan to fix any accessibility problems
3. Publish your accessibility statement
4. Make sure new features are accessible

The main theme throughout is that accessibility should be considered on how people with impairments to their sight, hearing, movement, memory or thinking may use the website/app. Regular tests should be carried out from the point code writing even through the public beta stage and at every time a new feature is added.

The best way to meet accessibility requirements is to:

  • think about accessibility requirements from the commencement

  • run accessibility tests regularly throughout development

  • get a formal accessibility audit before you go into public beta

  • make sure the service works with the most common assistive technologies - screen readers or speech recognition software

  • test the service with disabled users and with older users

Legislation link: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2018/852/contents/made

Published 01/01/2019
Authoring body: Government Digital Services (GDS)
Guidance
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Application Development

This guidance gives practical advice on the secure development, procurement and deployment of generic applications.

There are three types of common security issues:

  1. Secure data handling

  2. Application hardening

  3. Third party applications

This guidance is written main for risk assessors and application developers on how to minimise the loss of data from applications running on all devices handling sensitive data. Sensitive information should not be stored on devices when it's not required. If it must be stored on a device, a native data storage protection APIs (Application Programming Interface) available on the platform must be utilised. You must also ensure that the applications allows administrators to delete sensitive data from devices if they are compromised or lost and encrypt sensitive information when stored, protected by an authentication mechanism.

You must also securely implement cryptographic functions and store sensitive information securely, and hide it from the user until they have been authenticated and ensure that sessions timeout periodically and require the user or application to repeat the authentication process and where possible manage user accounts centrally.

Published 01/01/2018
Authoring body: National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC)
Guidance
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Frontline Digital Mobility - Connection Types

This guidance will explore the main connection types used by frontline officers and staff, whilst making recommendations about security and appropriate use. This guideline focuses on assisting forces to maximise their use of public 3G/4G (LTE) data networks prior to the delivery and adoption of the Emergency Service Network Data Services. This guideline does not cover voice services delivered over any of these networks.

Published 01/02/2020
Authoring body: Digital Policing Portfolio (DPP)
Guidance
Resource
Frontline Digital Mobility - Peripheral Keyboards

There are many types of keyboards available in the market place with many variances in terms of specification, features and of course price. This guidance explores these variances and makes recommendations (see section 4. Recommendations, page 2) to help forces make informed selections so as to accelerate their mobility maturity.

Published 01/02/2020
Authoring body: Digital Policing Portfolio (DPP)
Guidance
Resource
Frontline Digital Mobility - Portable Hotspots

Portable hotspots are a tried and tested peripheral. Advances continue to make them faster, better and smaller. There are many types of portable hotspots available in the market place with many variances in terms of specification, features and of course price. This guideline explores these variances and makes recommendations (see section 4. Recommendations, page 3) to help forces make informed selections to accelerate their mobility maturity.

Published 01/02/2020
Authoring body: Digital Policing Portfolio (DPP)
Guidance
Resource
Frontline Digital Mobility - Portable Power Banks

Portable power banks are a tried and tested peripheral. Advances continue to be made to make them faster, better and smaller. Yet there are many types of power banks available in the market place with many variances in terms of specification, features and of course price. This guideline explores these variances and makes recommendations (see section 4. Recommendations, page 3) to help forces make informed selections so as to accelerate their mobility maturity.

Published 01/02/2020
Authoring body: Digital Policing Portfolio (DPP)
Guidance
Resource
Frontline Digital Mobility - Laptop shells

A laptop shell is simply a laptop with no internal computing power, this is provided by connecting a smartphone to the laptop, which is then 'driven' by the keyboard, mouse and screen of the laptop 'shell'.

This guideline looks at the variances in terms of specification, features and price between the laptop shells currently available for pre-order. It explores the capabilities that a connected premium smartphone must have, such as DisplayPort and an appropriate “desktop mode”. Finally recommendations are made for forces who wish to be early adopters of this still immature technology (see section 4. Recommendations, page 4).

Published 01/02/2020
Authoring body: Digital Policing Portfolio (DPP)
Guidance