The Access Board and DOJ report a doubling of formal Section 508 compliance actions against federal agencies in 2025, driven by citizen complaints about inaccessible digital services.
The Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Access Board and the Department of Justice reported that formal Section 508 accessibility enforcement actions against federal agencies doubled in 2025 compared to 2024, reaching 847 formal complaints and 23 corrective action agreements.
The surge in enforcement activity is attributed to increased public awareness of digital accessibility rights, the expansion of federal digital services post-pandemic that introduced new inaccessible touchpoints, and improved complaint filing mechanisms.
Inaccessible PDF documents remain the leading source of complaints, accounting for 34 percent of all enforcement actions. Video content without captions represents 28 percent, and inaccessible web forms account for 19 percent.
The corrective action agreements now routinely include requirements for mandatory Section 508 training for web content authors, IT project managers, and procurement officers.
GovAcademy's Section 508 Accessibility Compliance course (GA-009) addresses the specific failure categories identified in the Access Board report, including accessible PDF authoring, caption requirements for video content, and WCAG 2.2 conformance testing.
The course has been updated to include the DOJ's 2025 guidance on web accessibility, which clarified that ADA accessibility requirements apply to all federal digital services regardless of whether they are internal-only or public-facing.
Twelve agencies subject to corrective action agreements have enrolled their web teams in GA-009 as part of their remediation plans submitted to DOJ.