Credit agencies to upgrade
Visually impaired to get access to reports
If Kim Charlson wants to check her credit report, she has to place trust in someone else. That is because Charlson, 50, is blind and the major consumer credit reporting companies - Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion - do not make the reports available in Braille or large-print formats. Nor are their websites compatible with software that allows blind and partially blind computer users to magnify or hear their financial data.
"A credit report is full of very private information," said Charlson, director of the Braille and Talking Book Library at Perkins School for the Blind in Watertown. "I have to decide who I will let read it to me."
That will soon change. Yesterday, the three credit reporting companies said they have agreed on a plan to make the information accessible to the visually impaired. The plan - which will include Braille, large print, and online reports - was developed with the American Council of the Blind and other advocate groups, as well as with the help of individuals like Charlson and Paul Parravano, codirector of government and community relations in the president's office at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
"This is a great day for people who are looking to build on their level of independence and maintain their ability to manage their own affairs," said Parravano, 56, who has been blind since infancy. Given the rise in identity theft in recent years, he said, access to credit reports has become more important than ever.
Online reports that comply with standards for talking software are expected to be available by Oct. 31 at AnnualCreditReport .com - the website that provides consumers with free credit reports annually from each of the major reporting companies. Braille and large-print formats will be offered by year-end, the agencies said.
"We are thrilled with the commitment of Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion to provide credit information in accessible formats," said Melanie Brunson, executive director of the American Council of the Blind in Washington.
Mark Marinko, president of consumer services at TransUnion, said the changes "will help empower visually impaired consumers to manage their own credit health."
Under the agreement, online credit reports and related Web pages will be designed to follow guidelines issued by the Web Accessibility Initiative of the World Wide Web Consortium. The guidelines are particularly crucial to blind computer users who use talking software - called a screen reader - or magnification technology, and who rely on a keyboard instead of a mouse.
"If the Web pages aren't coded properly, the software blind people have on their computers won't work," said Lainey Feingold, a disabilities and civil rights attorney in Berkeley, Calif., who represented the American Council of the Blind, other groups, and individuals in discussions with the credit reporting agencies. It took about three years to work out the details, Feingold said.
Charlson said she looks forward to soon being able to check her credit without enlisting outside help.
"Blind people haven't really been monitoring their credit reports as diligently as other people have," she said. "Now we'll be able to do that independently and privately."
Material from Globe wire services was used in this report.
Mark Pothier can be reached at mpothier@globe.com. 