Commonwealth Bank's new Eftpos system makes blind people reveal pin

Disability advocates have criticised Commonwealth Bank for deploying an Eftpos machine that cannot be used by the blind or visually-impaired.

The advocacy group Blind Citizens Australia and the former disability discrimination commissioner Graeme Innes said the touchscreen-only terminal was preventing blind users using the machine, or forcing them to divulge their pin to retail staff.

The bank’s Albert terminal is a tablet with no physical buttons or tactile keys, which means about 350,000 blind or low-vision Australians cannot use it independently. As of April, 75,000 terminals were in use across Australia.

The executive officer of Blind Citizens Australia, Emma Bennison, called on the bank to stop the rollout until the terminal could be made accessible to all.

“Our members are finding that each week many more shops and restaurants in their local communities are no longer accessible to them,” she said.

“People who are blind are being asked to divulge their pin number to a retail staff member to make a payment. This is totally unacceptable ... I cannot complete transactions which other Australians make 10 or 20 times a day.”

Innes said he and other advocates had contacted the bank about the terminal 18 months ago.

“We asked them to stop the rollout and modify the machine by adding a keypad,” he said. “They have talked to us a lot about the problem, but taken very little action to do anything about it.

“Many people who are blind or vision-impaired have stopped going to retailers who only have these machines. Others have stopped making transactions, and been forced to rely on family members and friends to do the grocery shopping, pay for the drinks or buy the milk and bread.

“The Commonwealth Bank, by rolling out this device, is eroding the independence for which we have fought for many years.”

The Albert machine is a seven-inch Android touchscreen tablet, launched in March 2015 and described as “an innovative new EFTPOS tablet [to] disrupt the payments space”.

According to the tablet’s user guide, Albert has accessibility features that include text-to-speech and a “virtual cursor” that uses swipes to input pin details.

“Albert has the capacity to be accessible to Australians who are blind or have low vision through the use of text-to-speech technology,” it says.

“Text to speech will prompt the customer to select Cheque, Savings or Credit ... The voice prompts will instruct the customer to enter their pin.”

Users can then use a “virtual cursor” that starts on the number five to select numbers.

“Swiping up, down, left, right or diagonally moves the virtual cursor. A two finger tap, or a double tap confirms the input. For example, from 5, swipe left + confirm = 4.”

However, customers will get only three chances to enter their pin correctly before their account is locked.

Bennison told the ABC’s AM program the accessibility features were inadequate.

“There is an accessibility mode to turn on to make it apparently accessible, except you still have to listen to a 10-minute tutorial so it really isn’t possible to make it accessible, particularly in a noisy environment,” she said.

“It’s just completely unacceptable ... regularly people have told us that they had no other choice but to divulge their pin because they can’t hear the tutorial, the staff member doesn’t know how to turn the accessibility on, or they don’t have time to stand around for 10 minutes.”

A Commonwealth Bank spokeswoman said the bank was working with the blind and visually-impaired community to “enhance our solutions”.

“When leveraging new technologies, such as touchscreens, ensuring access for the vison-impaired community is vital and presents industry-wide challenges,” she said.