Keeping your UK Website Legal

Your website is often your business. Without it you may not be able to trade as effectively as you would like. Legislation in the UK prescribes that you must do certain things with your website to ensure that it, and you, are operating fully within UK law.

The two main pieces of legislation that you should be aware of are the The Companies (Registrar, Languages and Trading Disclosures) Regulations 2006 and The Disability Discrimination Act.

Disability Discrimination Act

The disability discrimination act states that it is 'unlawful to discriminate against disabled persons in connection with employment, the provision of goods, facilities and services or the disposal or management of premises; to make provision about the employment of disabled persons'. In essence this explicitly states that your website must be accessible to all

What does the DDA mean for you.

If your website is in Flash, your Navigation is in Flash or someother aspect of your website is in Flash you may have problems. Flash is not only impentrable by search engines, making it an SEO no-no, but also unreadable by website readers such as JAWS. Flash is a system for comiling actions within image files. There is nothing for search engines or screen readers to process. The best practice would be to remove items of Flash from your website, this is not always possible as Flash can be an effective means of marketing your products or services to users. Duly it would be best practice to provide a section that has a textual representation of the Flash element using the <noscript>...</noscript> convention. This will allow users to operate the website effectively and allow you to operate effectively within the legislation. the same rules hold true for Java elements, some JavaScript elements and data held within images. Images can utilise the 'alt' attribute as a means of improving the experience for visually impaired users. In certain circumstances you may need to provide additional support for users to let them operate your website effectively as in password codes hidden in images where supplying the password code within an alt attribute would leave forms open to abuse.

The Companies (Registrar, Languages and Trading Disclosures) Regulations 2006

This piece of legislation is new and is likely to mean that changes are required on a large number of websites that operate and trade in the UK. It brings forms of electronic communication into line with the rules and regulations required in paper based communication by companies. In simple terms your website must, if it is a registered business in the UK, display:

  • Their company registration number
  • Their place of registration
  • The registered address of their office
  • on their
  • Website
  • Order Forms
  • Emails

In essence this means, that if you are a UK registered business, you must have the prescribed information on at least one page of your website - it is likely to be most useful on the Terms and Conditions page, the Contact Page or the About Us Page on your site. The prescribed information must also be used in your email footer and on any pages for oreder, booking or buying on your website.


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