A Traralgon disability advocate is calling on local businesses not to use touchscreen eftpos machines as it compromises the privacy and independence of people who are blind or vision-impaired.
Traralgon resident Phillip Chalker, who is legally blind, said he was afraid to use touchscreen eftpos machines.
“I don’t want to buy things from [businesses with touchscreen eftpos machines] anymore if I have to reveal my PIN,” he said.
“I’m scared to use them, I don’t want to even try to use them.”
Without a physical keypad on the devices, Mr Chalker said the touchscreen interface made it extremely difficult for blind or vision-impaired people to enter their PIN independently.
“Being a flat screen, it is hard to locate where the number area is,” he said
“We often use the number five as a location and some [eftpos machines] have a raised dot so you can find it, but on a touchscreen you can’t even find where the numbers are.”
Mr Chalker said he had recently chosen not to make a payment at a local business as he didn’t want to use the touchscreen eftpos facilities.
“I didn’t make the payment,” he said.
“The staff didn’t even know how to assist a blind person [to use the machine] properly.
“They might say there is accessibility on in it but people will be lined up for 10 minutes while a blind person doesn’t know what they are doing and people will be saying ‘just tell them the PIN’.”
Mr Chalker said the machines had an accessibility-mode, however, the user had to listen to a 10-minute tutorial in order to use the machine in the mode.
“I’m there nearly over 10 minutes trying to put headphones in, making it so hard for disability people just to get around,” he said.
“The line is going to be very long and you are going to have very damn cranky [people].
“I’d rather remove those ones and go back to the ones with touch buttons, where we can locate the button.
“As a legally-blind person, would like to encourage businesses not to get those machines and I’m not just thinking of blind people, but people who have touching problems.”
Mr Chalker has ordered a number of informational postcards from Blind Citizens Australia, a group that advocates for the rights of blind and vision-impaired people, which allow blind or vision-impaired people to quickly and easily communicate the issue with touchscreen eftpos machines in a busy retail environment.
The cards explain why the lack of physical buttons on the machine makes it hard for vision-impaired people to use them and how this impacts their privacy and independence.
