Banks Sued over ATM Use

Banks Sued over ATM Use

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Banks Sued over ATM Use: Advocates for the Blind

Say Mellon and PNC Should Provide Voice-Operated Machines

by Joseph A. Slobodzian

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From the Editor: The following article appeared in the June

4, 1999, edition of the Philadelphia Inquirer. In the May issue

of the Braille Monitor we carried a story outlining the problems

with today's automatic teller machines. The following article

continues the story. Here it is:

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Advocates for the blind in Pennsylvania yesterday sued

Mellon Bank and PNC Bank, contending that the banks must provide

voice-equipped automatic teller machines to comply with federal

disabilities law.

The lawsuits were filed in U.S. District Courts in

Philadelphia against Mellon, and in Pittsburgh against PNC, by

the National Federation of the Blind of Pennsylvania and

individual Federation members who are customers of the banks.

"The talking ATM technology is available, and we think the

banks should provide them for their blind customers," said

Theodore Young, owner of a Glenside computer company, president

of the Pennsylvania Federation, and a blind customer of Mellon

Bank.

Young said the two banks were targeted in the suit because

both are large statewide banks likely to have significant numbers

of blind customers. Although most banks now have ATM machines

with Braille raised-dot coding along the keys for blind users,

Young said only 15 percent of the blind are literate in Braille.

Young said even those who are Braille-literate, as he is, are not

helped when the bank changes the on-screen message or options on

the ATM.

"You wind up having to memorize the keys until the next

changes," Young added. The lawsuit, filed under the Americans

With Disabilities Act, asks the court to find the banks in

violation of the federal law and order them to install talking

ATM technology.

Spokesmen for Mellon and PNC said yesterday that they were

not permitted to comment on pending litigation. John Hall, a

spokesman for the American Bankers Association, a Washington-

based industry group, said talking ATM technology is new and not

in common use in U.S. banks. Hall said an association task force

worked with disabilities groups at the time the federal law took

effect in 1992 and approved accommodations for the blind such as

Braille directions and bank-sponsored training for the blind on

using ATM machines.

Voice-equipped ATM's were discounted as an option at the

time, Hall said, because of security concerns when the ATM voice

announces personal financial information about the blind

customer.

Young, however, said current technology would let the ATM

machines broadcast aural directions that could only be heard by

someone wearing a special headset programmed to receive it. Young

said such an accommodation was critical for the blind as more

federal and state government agencies are using direct-deposit to

place social program benefits in recipients' bank accounts.

Thomas H. Earle, a lawyer with the Disabilities Law Project

in Center City, who filed the suit for the blind federation,

acknowledged that the talking bank technology was new but noted

that Royal Bank of Canada had begun installing such machines in

its banks.

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