The San Francisco, California-based LightHouse For the Blind is seeing red over video rental giant Redbox’s self-service kiosks, claiming that they’re inaccessible to the blind or visually impaired.
The group recently filed a class-action discrimination lawsuit against the company on behalf of Californians with vision loss in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. It is the first of its kind nationwide.
Recent technological innovations have changed the way consumers purchase produces and services. Self-service kiosks with touch-screen interfaces now enable customers to perform a broad spectrum of transactions independently, and they are able to be adapted for use by those with visual impairment through tactile controls and other assistive devices.
The suit argues that Redbox failed to adapt its kiosks to be accessible to customers with vision loss, thereby violating federal law that forbids discrimination against Americans with disabilities.
The company each month rents 60 million videos through self-service kiosks located in thousands of businesses throughout California, making up over one-third of the DVD rental market nationwide.
LightHouse contends that Redbox’s refusal to make their kiosks accessible to the estimated 100,000 legal blind Californians shuts out a large and growing segment of the population.
“A lack of accessibility in newly emerging forms of commerce is a symptom of the overall growing technological divide that blind people experience when companies fail to build in accessible features at the onset,” said LightHouse Executive Director and CEO Bryan Bashin.
In addition to LightHouse, plaintiffs also include five blind Californians.
“I’m not asking for the world here but simply for the ability to rent DVDs from Redboxes just like everyone else can,” said plaintiff Joshua Saunders of Union City, California.
Added plaintiff Lisamaria Martinez: ”I love watching movies with my husband and son and would like to independently rent movies for my family at Redboxes.”
Jay Koslofsky, who filed the suit on behalf of the plaintiffs characterized technology as a “double-edged sword” capable of enabling and disabling millions if not made equally accessible to all segments of society.
The Berkeley, California-based Disability Rights Advocates (DRA), a non-profit disability rights legal center, is also helping represent the plaintiffs.
