In April 2025, the World Institute on Disability (WID) released a white paper on accessibility in the app economy space titled Accountability Now: Enforcing Accessibility Standards In the Mobile App Economy. This WID report is remarkable in highlighting how the symbiotic relationship between developers and platforms has bolstered innovation across digital platforms to support consumers with disabilities.

The white paper details how, while there has been progress in app and platform accessibility, millions of people with disabilities continue to face accessibility barriers and much work remains to create a truly accessible digital app economy. This report offers valuable recommendations to policymakers, from governments to individual organizations, on how to address this gap.

WID’s report comes at an important time. Right now, policymakers (legislators, enforcers, and courts) around the world are either implementing or considering new digital platform regulations that threaten to upend the way these platforms work and how our developer community interacts with them. These digital platform regulations unintentionally jeopardize investment and innovation in new accessibility features that millions of disabled users increasingly rely on.

ACT | The App Association is committed to achieving true accessibility: providing all users, including those with disabilities, with equivalent experiences.  Notably, our community is dedicated to ensuring that accessibility is considered throughout the app development process (“accessibility-by-design”). While innovation in disability access is certainly a business necessity (16 percent of the world’s population has a disability), more importantly, it is the right thing to do.

The App Association is proud to support WID’s critical research into this issue. We hope this report will make a meaningful contribution to policymakers at all levels as they consider ways to make our global digital economy accessible for all.

We encourage you to review this WID report, which is available at https://wid.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/2025-Accountability-Now-Mobile-App-WP-3.pdf