Since October 1, it has been illegal for any business to discriminate against disabled people, either during the recruitment process or at work, and disability rights campaigners says that employers must make better use of new technology to help them fulfill their new obligations. Amendments to the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) require all Businesses, not just those with more than 15 employees as previously, to make "reasonable adjustments" to workplaces to accommodate the disabled. Such adjustments include buying new equipment or modifying existing systems so that disabled people can use them. But many employers are failing to investigate potentially useful changes or upgrades to systems. They are also failing to claim generous access to work grants from the government, designed to cover the cost of adapting or re-equipping a workplace, extra training or hiring human assistants like sign language interpreters. Ruth Loehl, a senior ICT development officer at the Royal National Institute for the Blind, says: "The technology is there and the funding is there. But many employers and employees don"t know what"s available. It"s patchy across the country. "Access to Work grants can cover up to 100 percent of the cost of new or adapted equipment, says Ms. Loehl. "You shouldn"t have to pay any more to employ a blind person." Lynne Nelson, employment coordinator for the Royal National Institute for the Deaf agrees: "Technology is very much underused. Employers are not aware of what"s available and they"re more reactive than proactive." Complying with the act could be as easy as rearranging an office so that the light is better for a deaf person to lip-read. At the other end of the scale, it could mean investing in a cutting edge messaging system which combines computers and phones, converting text messages into voice messages for blind or partially sighted employees and incorporating voice recognition software for people unable to use a conventional keyboard and mouse. Changing font sizes and shapes and using different background colours can all help to make computer-screen displays more legible and accessible for visually impaired users. Screen magnifier programmes are available to enlarge text. Screen reader software will read out the content of email boxes or websites. Commercial websites now incorporate alt. tags, phrases or sentences which describe images on sites to blind and partially sighted users through screen readers. But some sites still carry images described simply as "corporate logo" or "image". A survey by the Disability Rights Commission earlier this year found that 81 percent of websites were inaccessible or difficult to use, often because of badly worded alt. tags or because the software was blocking attempts to change fonts or colours. It can be inferred from the text that many employers