Japan Launches Public Phone Relay Service for People with Hearing or Speech Disabilities (1)

Japan has launched a public telephone relay service that enables people who are deaf or have a hearing and/or speech impairment to place phone calls via online assistants 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

It thus became the last of the Group of Seven (G7) advanced economies to create a public system offering barrier-free access to phone services.　In the United States, for example, the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act mandated the establishment of the nationwide telecommunications relay service for people with hearing or speech disabilities.

For the new service, which I believe is imperative for the country’s infrastructure, the Japanese Ministry for Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) designated earlier this year The Nippon Foundation Telecommunication Relay Service, a new partner organization of The Nippon Foundation, as a telephone relay service provider as called for under the 2020 Act on Facilitating the Use of Telephones by the Hearing Impaired, etc.

In a video message for the launch ceremony on July 1, Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said: “The new service will allow anybody, regardless of disabilities, to easily make phone calls. I hope The Nippon Foundation Telecommunication Relay Service will play a due role in providing this important service.”

At the event, Minister for Internal Affairs and Communications Ryota Takeda made a demonstration call to Ms. Ikumi Kawamata, a staff member with The Nippon Foundation who is deaf, encouraging people to make full use of the relay service and expand the scope of their activities.

Speaking at the ceremony, I welcomed the launch of the service, which came eight years after The Nippon Foundation started providing a free-of-charge telephone relay service on a trial basis in 2013 with a view to prompting the government to take the initiative in this critically important undertaking.

The system enables people with hearing and/or speech disabilities to send messages in sign language or text using computers or smartphones, which will then be interpreted by communications assistants in real time so those on the other end of the call can understand them. Unlike our trial service, it is accessible 24/7 and can always handle emergency calls to police, fire stations, coast guard and hospitals.

To use the service, people with hearing or speech disabilities need to apply by a special app or email to be assigned a telephone number starting 050. This will also enable hearing people to call those who are hard-of-hearing or have speech difficulties directly

(To be continued)