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IN TOUCH – Braille on Food Labelling; Disability Policy at the White House

TX:Ìý 08.08.2023Ìý 2040-2100

PRESENTER:Ìý ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý PETER WHITE

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PRODUCER:ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý BETH HEMMINGS

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White

Good evening. ÌýTonight, going to the heart of power – that’s our theme.Ìý We’ll be talking to the visually impaired woman who spent a year working at the White House monitoring its policies on disability.

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Clip

In general, in society, disability is not necessarily well represented or accurately represented.Ìý If that is what an AI learns then the information that it puts out at the back end is likely to have those same kinds of flaws, which means, if you use an algorithm for employment testing, it may not take into account accommodations, which means somebody with a disability may score lower.

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White

More from Day Al-Mohamed later in the programme.

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But first, Marie Harrower may not have grabbed the job at Holyrood yet but she is certainly doing her best to influence one particular policy with the Scottish Parliament.Ìý She’s a member of Oban and District Access Panel and they, along with other organisations – Sight Scotland and Disability Equality Scotland – is campaigning for braille labelling on food products. ÌýAnd they already have almost 1300 signatures on a petition to the Scottish Parliament.

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Well, I’m joined by Marie Harrower.Ìý Marie, first of all, there are already some isolated examples of braille labelling on food and other products, almost 10 years ago, for instance, we featured what the Co-Op was doing about this.

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Archive clip – In Touch

Now this is a real luxury for me because I’ve got my head stuck in the freezer chiller here at the Co-Op and I’m doing me own shopping really.Ìý This says:Ìý Chicken and Ham Hock Pie.Ìý And shut the chiller and on the next shelving – ah, the cereal.Ìý So, this is fruit and nut muesli.Ìý Braille’s a little bit faint, actually it’s better on here, in the chiller it’s a bit tricky because I think damp’s got to it.

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White

Marie, an isolated example there.Ìý So, what exactly is it that you are asking for?

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Harrower

Peter, I think the Co-Op was the inspiration for thinking about braille labelling on food products.Ìý Once you experience the benefits and the luxury of it you wonder why all companies don’t provide braille labelling, as far as I know, apart from the Co-Op, there’s only one other company that I’ve come across that braille labels on food products.

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White

And how much information do you need and how much is it practical to put on a label in braille?

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Harrower

I’m happy with the name of the product.Ìý It’s good to have the weight of the product as well.Ìý What would be really good would be to have the sell by or use by date.Ìý But even if we just have the name of the product in order that you can quickly, easily and safely identify what you’re dealing with.Ìý The other day I bought a box of tissues from the Co-Op, I put my food products away, I put my tissues down on the cabinet, left them for two or three days, thought I’d better tidy the cabinet up and here’s a box on the cabinet and instantly I could identify the fact that they were ultra-soft tissues and pop them where they should be put.

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White

So, what stage is your campaign at, at the moment?

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Harrower

Well, we launched the Parliamentary campaign, it was open for a month and then at the end of March it was reviewed by the Citizens Participation Public Petition Committee and they are working on it at the moment.Ìý We’ve been in touch with Food Standard Scotland and let me say at this point that although this has started in Scotland and we’re obviously trying to get it through the Scottish Parliament, it will go to Westminster because braille labelling on food products will be national, it’ll be throughout the UK.

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White

Can we talk a bit more about the fact of braille labelling?Ìý The numbers of braille readers is rather low, I mean an estimated 7% of blind people read it or though nobody’s really absolutely sure how many.Ìý Would you not be better off pressing for more speech related labelling, you know, using the latest technology like NaviLens, for example, wouldn’t that provide a better range of information as well as being readable to more people?

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Harrower

Well, it’s a good point, Peter, but I think the 7% should be able to enjoy the benefits of very quick and very easy identification of a product.Ìý And in a way braille labelling might be a very good reason to encourage people to learn braille.Ìý I think if you want more detailed information, then to combine it with scanning a QR code, that’s going to be the ideal and I think that will be the way forward.

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White

Well, we did invite Food Standard Scotland – FSS – on to the programme, they told us they had no one available but they said, in a statement:

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Food Standard Scotland statement

Any proposals for change need to be considered on a UK basis.Ìý As such, Food Standard Scotland has discussed the campaign with officials in departments with responsibility for food labelling in other parts of the UK.Ìý While we currently have other commitments on labelling and standards matters, we fully intend to explore how best to support blind and partially sighted consumers to make safe and informed food choices as soon as the opportunity arises.

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It sounds from that, Marie, as if this might be a bit of a slow process.

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Harrower

Peter, I think, that is absolutely correct.Ìý We have been back in contact with Food Standard Scotland, we being the campaign group, and the Citizens Participation Public Petition Committee have also been in touch with Food Standard Scotland because they feel that the delay isn’t really acceptable, that there definitely should be a much clearer timescale.

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White

Marie Harrower, thank you.

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There is a website to submit your responses to the survey that they’re doing, just search Inclusive Communications Braille Campaign.Ìý And if you prefer and find websites tricky there is a phone number, it’s for Disability Equality Scotland and they’re there to help people give their responses to the campaign, that’s 0141 3700968, 0141 3700968.

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Now, my second guest today is also a woman who’s passionate about making sure that government policies take into account the needs of disabled people, not just consumers but in all areas of life.Ìý And she’s certainly gone to the top to do it.Ìý Day Al-Mohamed is an American and for the past year she’s been working at the White House monitoring legislation and government policies that affect us, which, when you think about it, is most of them.Ìý We’ll be talking about some of those policies in a little more detail in a moment but there’s much more to Day than being a federal worker, she’s a writer of two books for young adults, she’s a broadcaster, a documentary filmmaker and she co-founded a company that helps disabled people get into filmmaking.

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Day, the problem we have is we’ve only got about 10 minutes, where do we start?

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Al-Mohamed

Actually, I’m just thrilled to be here because I love talking all things disability and disability community.Ìý I don’t really get a chance to celebrate our wins as often as we should.

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White

Well, I’ll tell you where we start – how did the White House opportunity come about?

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Al-Mohamed

I have worked in disability policy for more than 15 years, so I covered a little bit of everything and so, when the White House position came up, it’s the Director of Disability Policy, so what that means is we’re driving disability policy across the entire federal government.Ìý It’s sometimes… it’s making changes, sometimes it’s saying absolutely not, that would be detrimental to the community and other times, from the very beginning, going here’s a good idea, let’s take this and build it.Ìý So, one day I might be working on issues around the way AI is developing and ethics around artificial intelligence and the machine learning to incorporate disability better, other times, talking about maternal healthcare and the fact that hello, for women who are pregnant, who may be wheelchair users, having accessible examining tables is absolutely critical to ensure both their and the baby’s health.

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White

I’ll tell you… well, let’s stay with artificial intelligence for a minute because there’s been so much chatter about all this in the last few months both in your country and ours and although some of that discussion is very nervous about the possible impacts of AI, as far as visually impaired people are concerned, surely, it could be a very positive force, couldn’t it?Ìý I mean we’ve already seen its use by companies such as Be My Eyes.Ìý So, explain what you saw coming across your desk and what was wrong with it.

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Al-Mohamed

I think the biggest thing is, is if you look at how the machines learn, right and how the algorithms are designed to make choices, it’s all based on what the machines are fed.Ìý So, if we were to make the premise, which I would argue is accurate, that, in general, in society, disability is not necessarily well represented or accurately represented, right, there’s not very much information about us, if that is what an AI learns then the information that it puts out at the back end is likely to have those same kinds of flaws.Ìý Which means if you use an algorithm for employment testing, right, it may not take into account accommodations, which means somebody with a disability may score lower, which means an employer might go – yeah, this person didn’t score high enough.

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White

So, it is the old story – what you get out depends on what you put in.Ìý So, my question is, as far as blind people are concerned, what didn’t they put in with the stuff that came across your desk?

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Al-Mohamed

Any mention of disability at all, how about that?Ìý So, I think what it is, is making sure that there is recognition that hey, when you are building these systems to ensure that what’s going in, you know, actually is as accurate as possible, reflects the community.Ìý When we start seeing AI used for things like determining who gets health insurance.Ìý I think the best thing I did was start looking at here are questions I wanted to raise – what about this, have you looked at this arena here – as much as I could and then also looking at are there other standards or are there standard protocols that are used that could be improved.

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White

Right.Ìý Now you’ve also mentioned the other thing, which I most wanted to talk to you about, as far as the legislation is concerned, because I know your day job is in the Department of Labour and you were very much involved with an initiative called Add Us In, aimed at increasing employment opportunities for disabled people.Ìý But the employment figures, as I understand it, are much the same in the States as they are here – disappointingly low, about 30% of blind and partially sighted people of working age in jobs.Ìý What do you think needs to be done to change this?

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Al-Mohamed

It is really tough.Ìý I think one of the toughest things is the fact that we can put down the laws that say – thou shalt not discriminate – but at the end of the day employment and hiring and all of that still has the subjective element of human beings, which means until we can impact the cultural elements of how people look at us because the moment they see somebody as visual impaired there’s a question of capacity, right, there’s a question of… yeah, can you really do that.Ìý And it still kind of frustrates me where I’ll have somebody assume I’m incapable or a burden, especially to my wife and they’re like – Oh, are you her caretaker – I’m like, no, that’s not how this works.

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That question of capacity is a difficult part and until we can, I think, break that cultural element it’s going to continue to be an uphill battle.

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White

So, what got you into documentary filmmaking?Ìý And I do that jump because I suspect you think that this kind of thing can have more impact perhaps than, you know, sometimes a piece of legislation.

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Al-Mohamed

Oh, you read my mind, yes, this is where we see that two-part element, right.Ìý One is law that says you have to do this and the idea of film, you know, books, media or any sort, is this is where you can do the cultural element.Ìý Like if people are inundated with these images and ideas of people with disabilities – guess what, we’re like everybody else, right.Ìý We can be good employees, we can be good parents, we can do all the things and suddenly it makes it more effective.Ìý And so, I started in writing first with some of the books and being able to see folks go – I hadn’t thought of it that way – and then documentary was just the next kind of shift.

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White

Right.Ìý Well, I’m going to fall into the trap now and so, I’m going to say it, so you can’t accuse me of it by asking you a can she really do that question.Ìý Films – films are visual, you know, how do you deal with the visual elements of producing and directing, which most people would assume you need sight for?

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Al-Mohamed

Honestly and this is one of the places where I still have the biggest pushback from folks who don’t know because the moment I walk in and say I’m a blind director, there’s like – yeah, her camera person’s doing all the work – or – yeah, her producer’s doing all the work.Ìý So, let me give you an example.Ìý If someone is doing, let’s say, an animated film, right, whether we’re talking Disney or anybody else, before they actually do the animation, right, they storyboard it out – they lay out every scene and every image and the dialogue, the script, they actually lay it out scene by scene.Ìý So, all I do is a variant to that.Ìý I have an Excel spreadsheet and as we work out what is the story, what are the elements, I actually just like line by line go – here are the kind of images what I think – or – here’s what I think might be a good camera angle.Ìý And then build, actually, the story based on those images.Ìý Now documentary is not just about what’s there, it’s also a little bit about what you discover along the way.Ìý So, as we film is I listen in on what people are saying and what’s there, I can change and swap out those sections but suddenly it’s a piece by piece, the same way someone would storyboard.Ìý And filmmaking, to be honest, is a team sport, right, no one makes a film by themselves, no matter what we talk about the auteur process and Steven Spielberg and all them, I’m like it’s a team process.Ìý You build your team, you build a good team and that’s going to work well for you.Ìý I have had several wonderful camera folks where I go – here’s what I have in mind, if you see something that you think might be a great shot talk to me about it and we’ll see if it fits.Ìý And we go from there.

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White

Yeah, I can absolutely reinforce that because I mean I am totally blind, I’ve done television and I know that’s the way you work but it’s really hard for people to get it.

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Al-Mohamed

Once you explain it’s very boring, right?

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White

Well, yeah, we’ll move on then.Ìý I just want to take you back, before we end, to the White House because we’re all quite sort of fascinated by that, just as the White House as a place.Ìý What’s it like as a place to work?

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Al-Mohamed

Oh, my goodness. It is definitely a very different experience and it’s one of those ones where there’s always something going on, the work never ends.Ìý I always also tell people, I’m not a fan of the bathrooms.

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White

Oh really, what’s wrong with them?

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Al-Mohamed

They’re small, a little bit old, so…

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White

Right, so, people are asking you, expecting these deep and meaningful judgements about the White House and you say the bathrooms are rubbish.

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Can I just ask you; how much do you get the sense of being at the heart of affairs because, let’s face it, what happens in the White House has an impact on the whole world, I mean they’re deciding how many arms to give to Ukraine, there are some big decisions going on there.

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Al-Mohamed

Yeah, for me there’s the big sense of the responsibility to get things right.Ìý Indoor air quality, working on covid issues, working on healthcare issues, these are things that make a difference in people’s actual everyday lives.Ìý We spent weeks trying to put together more accessible covid testing for people who are blind and the visually impaired, so we could test for ourselves independently, without trying to find somebody else or technology to try and read the testing materials.Ìý And so that sense of making sure that you can get it right can be a little weighty some days.

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White

Yeah.Ìý Am I right that your guide dog was the first guide dog to work in… well I don’t know if he did any work but to work – to work in the White House, is that right?

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Al-Mohamed

So far as I know yeah, she was the first to regularly work there.Ìý I don’t know if there were interns who had dogs but as far as full-time, she was there with me every day.Ìý So, sadly she passed away in March of this year.Ìý She may have slept through a few meetings but…

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White

Probably not the only one to have done that, I should think.

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Day Al-Mohamed, thank you very much for joining us on the programme.

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Al-Mohamed

Well thank you for having me, it was fabulous.

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White

And that’s it for today.Ìý Your comments on anything you’ve heard always welcome, of course.Ìý In particular, though, and interesting since we were talking about guide dogs just now, we are planning two programmes on guide dog training here in the UK, prompted largely by the debate over the Step method of training dogs, which stresses reward over reprimand.Ìý But we’ll be dealing with many other issues too – waiting lists, eligibility for having a dog, etc.Ìý If you have a comment or a question do let us hear it and we’ll try to address it.Ìý You can email intouch@bbc.co.uk, you can leave a voice message on 0161 8361338 and there’s more information about a number of things on our website bbc.co.uk/intouch.

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From me, Peter White, producer Beth Hemmings, studio manager Nat Stokes, goodbye.

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