Closed captions for recorded board meetings under ADA Title II: PageKiwi

Check the official rules. Rules and dates change, so check them with the official sources before you rely on them: ADA.gov (the US Department of Justice), the W3C's WCAG pages and Section508.gov. PageKiwi helps you find problems and get closer to meeting the rules. It can't promise a website meets them, it isn't legal advice, and we can't take responsibility for decisions made from it.

What the rule asks

The Department of Justice's ADA Title II web rule asks towns, cities, counties and special districts to meet WCAG 2.1 level AA. Your date is April 26, 2027 if your population is 50,000 or more, and April 26, 2028 if it's smaller or you're a special district. For meeting videos, that means:

Recorded video: Captions for all the speech and the sounds that matter (WCAG 1.2.2).
Live stream: Captions while it's live (WCAG 1.2.4). Same date as everything else: the Department didn't give live captions extra time.
Audio only: A recording with no picture needs a transcript instead (WCAG 1.2.1).
On a video site or social media: Still yours. The rule covers what you post there, not the platform itself, so use its captions feature. Posts made before your date are exempt.
Through a vendor's player: Still yours. Content you provide through a contract has to meet the rule too.

Captions aren't only the words. The Department's own guidance asks for captions "that are accurate and identify any speakers in the video."

In short: automatic captions are like draft minutes from a new volunteer who doesn't know anyone's name. They're a fast start, and you check them before they go up, the same way minutes are approved.

Recorded meetings: automatic captions, then correct them

Most video platforms make automatic captions by themselves a little while after you upload. They're a good start, but the W3C (the group that writes WCAG) says automatic captions don't meet people's needs "unless they are confirmed to be fully accurate." In a meeting they often get names, motions and numbers wrong.

Upload the recording and wait for the automatic captions. Look in the video's settings for Captions or Subtitles.
Correct the parts where a mistake changes the meaning first:
- names of members, staff, residents and streets
- motions, who moved and seconded, and how each person voted
- numbers: dollar amounts, addresses, dates, ordinance and resolution numbers
Then read the rest through. Keep the agenda open beside you: it has most of the names and item titles spelled right.
Say who's speaking when it changes ("Mayor:", "Clerk:") and add sounds that matter, in brackets: [gavel], [inaudible], [no sound for 2 minutes].
Save the corrected captions in your video platform's captions or subtitles setting. Most let you edit there, or download the caption file (usually ending .vtt or .srt), correct it in a text editor, and upload it back.
Post the video on your website next to that meeting's agenda and minutes, and check the player has a CC button that works with the keyboard alone.

Too many hours of video for your office? A captioning service can do it for you, or correct the automatic captions; ask for a quote per hour of video. Slides or maps that nobody reads out are a gap too: WCAG asks for anything important that's only shown on screen to be described (1.2.5). The simplest fix is to ask presenters to say what's on each slide, and to post the slides with the video.

Live meetings

A meeting you stream live needs captions while it's live. The Department chose not to set an accuracy score or require one way of doing it, and it noted that automatic captions "are currently not sufficiently accurate in many contexts." Your choices:

Live automatic captions from your streaming platform. Often included at no extra cost; turn them on before the meeting starts and test them.
A live captioner (sometimes called CART, real-time captioning by a person), for busy meetings, public hearings and anything where exact words matter.
Both: automatic captions for routine meetings, a person when someone asks or the meeting is a big one.

After the meeting, the recording you keep online is a recorded video: replace the live captions with corrected ones. If a resident asks for a live captioner so they can take part, treat it as an accommodation request and talk to your ADA coordinator.

Old videos

On social media: posts made before your date don't have to meet WCAG 2.1 AA.
On your website: old videos can stay as they are only under the archive exception, and only when all four of its conditions are true. The archive exception, in plain words.
When someone asks: ADA.gov's example is to add captions to the archived video and send the person a copy. Say on your website how to ask; the accessibility statement template has the words.

Meetings recorded after your date never count as old, even in a folder called "Archive". The same goes for their agendas and minutes.

Send this to your video or streaming vendor

Not sure what to say? Copy this into an email, add your website's address, and send it.

Hi,

We post our board and council meetings with [the product] on our website, [your website address]. Under the Department of Justice's ADA Title II web rule, our videos must meet WCAG 2.1 level AA by [April 26, 2027 or April 26, 2028], including captions on recorded and live meetings.

Could you tell us in writing:

1. Can we edit the automatic captions, or upload our own caption file (.vtt or .srt), for each recording?
2. Can live streams show captions, automatic or from a live captioner, and how do we turn them on?
3. Does the player have a CC button that works with the keyboard and a screen reader? Can you send your accessibility report (often called a VPAT or ACR)?
4. When we embed a video on our website, does the embed carry a title saying which meeting it is?

Thanks

What PageKiwi can check

PageKiwi can't watch your videos or tell whether captions are right: that takes a person. Accessibility Check does find a video embedded with no title (a screen reader announces it as just "frame") and video or sound that starts playing by itself. An accessibility widget doesn't add captions either: they're made with the video.

PageKiwi Tips

We email you a link to confirm first. Never sold or shared. What we keep · Past tips

Captions for recorded board meetings