The existing anti-discrimination legislation is only related to the employment of disabled people. There is no implicit procurement policy or strategy and regulations only apply to physical structures, which states that all physical and architectural barriers should be suppressed from public and collective buildings.
According to the Resolution of the Ministers Council no.97/99 all information on public administration websites must comply with the Guidelines developed by the W3C.
According to Portuguese legislation regarding disabled people, the State through the competent services must promote measures in the following areas: prevention, information and financing, medical and functional rehabilitation, special education, professional rehabilitation, AT and accessibility and mobility for this group. There are a variety of AT service delivery systems and a number of organisations are involved in the provision of AT. Financial assistance from representative organisations is available for AT found on the list of approved devices (published in 1982 by the Ministry of the Social Subjects). Any remaining cases are dealt with by the Regional Centre of the Social Security Service which usually only pays the difference between the full price of the technical aid and the agreed reimbursement price. However, the total financial support available for each technical aid has remained the same for several years, which implies that in most cases the amount available is insignificant when compared to the total cost of the technical aid.
Information on telecommunications-based services and related costs was not available for visually impaired and deaf people in Portugal and only a limited amount of information was available for elderly people. It seems that community alarm services are only available on a pilot basis at present and that only elderly people below a certain income are eligible for financial support in relation to telecommunications usage and access costs.
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