Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act - Frequently Asked Questions

D.4. - Is an agency ever required to fundamentally alter its needs in order to comply with Section 508?

No. The Access Board’s standards state that an agency is not required to alter its acquisition requirements in order to comply with Section 508 if the alteration would be so fundamental that the agency would no longer be procuring EIT that met its needs.

For example, if an agency needs to meet certain security needs by acquiring secure telephone units that are all analog, the agency would not be required to buy digital phones if such phones failed to meet the agency’s security needs even if the digital phones fully meet the applicable technical provisions of the Access Board’s standards and the analog phones meet only some of the applicable technical provisions.