28 CFR Part 36 Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Disability by Public Accommodations and in Commercial Facilities NPRM: Preamble (2008 Title III NPRM Preamble)

"Video Interpreting Services" (VIS) (Section-by-Section Analysis)

The Department has added a definition of "video interpreting services (VIS)," a technology composed of a video phone, video monitors, cameras, a high-speed Internet connection, and an interpreter.  The video phone provides video transmission to a video monitor that permits the individual who is deaf or hard of hearing to view and sign to a video interpreter (i.e., a live interpreter in another location), who can see and sign to the individual through a camera located on or near the monitor, while others can communicate by speaking.  The video monitor can display a split screen of two live images, with the interpreter in one image and the individual who is deaf or hard of hearing in the other image. 

VIS can provide immediate, effective access to interpreting services seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day by allowing people in different locations to engage in live, face-to-face communications.  Moreover, VIS is particularly helpful where qualified interpreters are not readily available (e.g., for quick response to emergency hospital visits, in areas with an insufficient number of qualified interpreters to meet demand, and in rural areas where distances and an interpreter's travel time present obstacles).

Along with the addition of the definition of VIS, other amendments to the communications section are discussed below in § 36.303.