Accessibility statement

Our commitment

We build for the phone first, for readers who may be in a hurry or under stress. That means large tap targets, clear headings, high-contrast text on a plain light ground, and pages that work without a mouse. WCAG 2.1 AA is our target for every public page, and we treat the Accessible Canada Act and Alberta’s human-rights obligations as the floor, not the ceiling.

The standard we target

Our conformance target is WCAG 2.1 Level AA for every public page on crimewatchcanada.com, including the alert pages, the Wanted and Missing Children sections, the magazine, supporter pages and every form. We consider this a partial-conformance claim: the pages we build are tested against it, while PDFs supplied by the publisher and third-party checkout pages are not yet fully covered. The gaps are listed below rather than hidden.

What we do

• Semantic HTML with one h1 per page, landmarks, and a “Skip to content” link as the first focusable element.
• Keyboard access to every control, with a visible focus ring, and no keyboard traps.
• Text that can be resized to 200% and reflows at 320px wide without horizontal scrolling; body text is never below 16px.
• Colour is never the only carrier of meaning — status is also given in words; contrast of text against background meets 4.5:1.
• Alternative text on images that carry information; decorative images are marked as such. Wanted and Arrested cards always carry the person’s name and charge as text, not only in the image.
• Forms with visible labels, error messages in text, and no time limits.
• Animation is reduced or removed when your device asks for reduced motion.
• A phone number and email address on every page for anyone who prefers to reach us another way.

Known limitations

• Older wanted-person cards are photographs of printed cards; the text on them is repeated beside each card but the card image itself is not machine-readable.
• Digital magazine editions are PDFs produced for print; not every back issue has been tagged for screen readers. Ask us and we will provide the text of any article.
• Third-party pages we link to (police services, map providers, Stripe checkout) have their own accessibility practices.

How we test

Pages are checked on release with automated tools (Lighthouse, axe), by keyboard-only navigation, at 390px and 320px widths, and with VoiceOver on iOS and NVDA on Windows. We re-test after any change to shared templates.

Tell us about a barrier

If anything on this site is hard to use, or you need content in another format (large print, plain text, or a read-aloud of an article), contact us and we will respond within five business days:

admin@crimewatchcanada.com
+1 780-443-4453
Crime Report Publications Ltd., 12904 54 St NW, Edmonton, AB T5A 0A4

Or use the contact form and choose the “Technical” topic.