At Element, we are committed to making our products accessible to everyone, and that means designing our products with every kind of user in mind. This includes designing our web and mobile platforms so that they’re usable by everyone.
This accessibility statement outlines how our products align with accessibility standards, what limitations remain, and how users can report issues or request assistance.
Accessibility is not just a legal requirement under the European Accessibility Act (EAA), but a core part of what Element does; building inclusive, user-friendly communication tools for all.
A lot of the terminology used here can be quite confusing and technical, so this section is intended to simplify and demystify the jargon, and make it clear what we are trying to achieve:
Accessibility in this context means designing products so everyone can use them, including people who use screen readers, can't use a mouse, have visual or hearing impairments, or require assistive technologies in order to use the product.
What is the European Accessibility Act (EAA)? This is a European Union (EU) directive that came into force in June 2025. It requires businesses that sell digital products or services to the public in the EU to make their platforms accessible. Some of its technical requirements are based on a mix of international standards, particularly WCAG and EN 301 549 (defined below).
What does conformance mean? This just means whether a product meets accessibility standards. “Full conformance” means it meets all criteria, whereas “partial conformance” means some parts are still being worked on.
What’s a WCAG? WCAG is just the acronym for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. These are internationally recognised guidelines covering perceivability (information and user interface components must be presentable to users in ways they can perceive), operability (user interface components and navigation must be operable), understandability (information and the operation of user interface must be understandable), and robustness (content must be robust enough that it can be interpreted reliably by a wide variety of user agents, including assistive technologies). “Level AA” is the standard that we, along with the majority of commercial organisations, try to achieve - removing the most common barriers people deal with when using products like ours.
What is EN 301 549? EN 301 549 is a European standard that specifies accessibility requirements for information and communications technology products and services. It builds on WCAG and adds requirements that are specific to software, documents, and user interfaces on various platforms.
What’s a VPAT (Voluntary Product Accessibility Template)? Essentially a formal accessibility conformance report that shows how our products meet each WCAG and accessibility requirement.
We are working towards compliance with the EAA. As is the case with most rules and regulations, the governing bodies setting out these requirements are constantly reviewing and updating their guidelines. This means that any assertion regarding our accessibility conformance is a commitment to remain up-to-date with these evolutive requirements as much as we can, with the resources we have available. We therefore design and test our products in line with the EN 301 549 standard, which also incorporates the WCAG 2.1 Level AA criteria. Please see more information around the platform-specific requirements we are working towards in section 4 below.
At Element, we are fully committed to continuous improvement and perfecting accessibility across all our platforms. This is an ongoing effort to maximise accessibility, and it's at the forefront of our minds when designing, building, and testing our products. Actions speak louder than words, so here are some of the things we’re doing:
Accessibility improvements are tracked, prioritised, and re-evaluated with each product update to ensure we stay aligned with evolving standards and user needs. If you have any suggestions or encounter any accessibility-related issues on any of our platforms, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us – your feedback is vital to help us in our mission to make our products accessible to everyone. You can learn more about this process in section 5 below (it doesn’t just apply to complaints).
Specific features include, but are not limited to:
Element Web is built for current versions of major browsers (e.g. Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge).
Our current priority is on making our commercial products as accessible as possible, as soon as possible, while applying our best efforts to do the same for the open-source versions of those products. We cannot make any commitments regarding third-party widgets which we do not control, so they are out of scope.
Element Web is developed to meet EN 301 549, which incorporates the WCAG 2.1 Level AA criteria, both of which form the basis of the technical requirements of the EAA.
Unless specifically noted, the features and known issues detailed below refer to both the Android and iOS mobile platforms.
Specific features include, but are not limited to:
On iOS, we support the two (2) previous versions of available software from Apple. For example, in the summer of 2025 we support iOS 17 and iOS 18. From September 2025 onwards we will support only iOS 18 and iOS 26.
On Android, Element Pro (and its variants) is only supported on OS versions still receiving regular Google security updates (https://endoflife.date/android). Element X supports older devices from Android 7.0 Nougat onward. You can read more about the supported versions here:https://github.com/element-hq/element-x-android?tab=readme-ov-file#minimum-sdk-version
Our current priority is on making our commercial and latest products as accessible as possible, as soon as possible. We cannot make any commitments regarding any legacy or unprioritised apps.
Element Mobile on iOS and Android is developed to meet EN 301 549, which incorporates the WCAG 2.1 Level AA criteria, both of which form the basis of the technical requirements of the EAA.
If you encounter an accessibility related issue, you can escalate your complaint as follows:
If you are unhappy with the initial reply, ask for your case to be reconsidered by our team.
Depending on where you are located, you may have different options in order to escalate your complaint. Users based in the UK can access Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS) for free, impartial guidance on these issues. You can find the relevant link here: https://www.equalityadvisoryservice.com/
For users based in the EU, you may raise the matter with the relevant national authority responsible for the EAA in your country. Please see the list of these bodies here: https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/web-accessibility-monitoring?
Making sure our products are accessible as possible also means being transparent about our methods. To this end, we produce formal accessibility conformance reports (also known as VPATs) to provide detailed breakdowns of how each of our platforms measure up against both WCAG 2.1 AA and EN 301 549. Please reach out to [email protected] to request a VPAT and see if you meet our internal criteria to receive these.
We will continuously review and republish this statement annually, or sooner if there are significant product or regulatory changes that we need to address.