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IN TOUCH – Equality Act Amendments; Smart Lipstick

TX:Ìý 12.07.2022Ìý 2040-2100

PRESENTER:Ìý ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý PETER WHITE

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PRODUCER:Ìý ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý FERN LULHAM

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White

Good evening.Ìý

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Music – Lipstick on your collar

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White

Well, later tonight, the research which could ensure you not only put your lipstick in the right place but with the colour and tone that suits your complexion best.Ìý And we’ve more of your reactions to inaccessible museums.

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But first, the access issue about which we get enough material to feature it every week if we wanted to.Ìý I mean taxis.Ìý By far the biggest bugbear you tell us about is drivers refusing to take guide dogs but there are other issues as well, such as being able to locate your taxi when it arrives and the attempts which are sometimes made to charge more if you require extra assistance.Ìý But there’s now news of two developments which it’s claimed will ease the situation.Ìý A new piece of legislation, the Taxis and Private Hire Vehicles (Disabled Persons) Act – bit of a mouthful – and the new app to help you report cases of what you consider to have been discrimination.Ìý In a moment, we’ll be hearing about those developments but first, someone who hasn’t been prepared to wait for them – guide dog owner Stephen Anderson.

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Stephen, you’ve taken the law into your own hands on multiple occasions, just explain the background to the kind of cases that you’ve brought.

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Anderson

Yes, indeed.Ìý So, since 2016, when I got Barny, I made my first complaint to Transport for London, which is my local licensing authority and since then I have made a total of 28 separate complaints and to date there have been nine successful prosecutions in the magistrates’ court.

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White

Right, now you’ve done all this.Ìý A lot of visually impaired people say it’s just too much of a hassle to bring such cases.Ìý You’ve obviously decided it’s worth the hassle.Ìý Have you tried to get help in the past to bring your cases?

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Anderson

I’m very lucky in that Transport for London have been superb in terms of safeguarding my rights and taking people to court.Ìý But when I have had incidents in other parts of the country, I do feel it’s very much taken like a customer service issue, like the driver was a bit rude.Ìý For example, a lot of other local authorities don’t seem to understand or want to see that it is a criminal offence and that it should be taken as such.

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White

Well, listening to that is MP Jeremy Wright, who’s private members’ bill has now become law.Ìý Now your bill deals with a number of aspects of this problem.Ìý Just explain what’s been introduced which you would say offers more than the already existing Equality Act.

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Wright

Well, as Stephen has been describing the Equality Act doesn’t help even those people it’s supposed to help all the time but it doesn’t even help, in theory, quite a large number of people who have a disability.Ìý So, what my bill does is it extends the responsibilities of taxis and private hire vehicle drivers to carry people with a wider range of disabilities, it requires them to offer some help – some mobility assistance where it’s reasonable to do that.Ìý It, of course, requires them, as the Equality Act, to do those things without extra charge.

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White

But does it tackle the point, that Stephen was making, putting a responsibility on licensing authorities to bring cases if taxi companies are apparently taking no action.

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Wright

Well, it’s still a responsibility for local authorities to do that and that’s largely because I have huge admiration for what Stephen’s been doing but, as everyone will recognise, not everyone is able to do what he’s doing, so it has to be the local authority that does it.Ìý It’s very difficult for legislation like this to oblige a local authority to take up every case but it gives the local authority the power to do so because there’ll be more offences that it can pursue.Ìý So, for example, my legislation will create a responsibility on drivers to help somebody who has arranged a private hire vehicle and may have, for example, a visual disability, who needs help identifying the vehicle, it will require the driver, who knows that that needs to be done, to offer that help.Ìý And I completely take your point and Stephen’s point about enforcement here.Ìý I think it’s probably worth saying, in my defence, this is a bill that’s what’s called a private members’ bill, so it has to be limited in scope or it will not pass because the time given to it is very limited.

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White

Stephen, how much do you think that adds to the kind of situations that you found yourself in?

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Anderson

There is a lot of good stuff in the new legislation but very little of it has, in fact none of it, has a direct impact on how I go about my business as a visually impaired person wanting to make sure that these drivers are prosecuted.

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White

Well, perhaps the next thing we’re going to talk about will address Stephen’s issues more directly.Ìý What about the new app I mentioned?Ìý It’s being introduced by Guide Dogs, the charity, indeed it was hinted at a few weeks ago when a member of their campaigns’ team, Clive Wood, was on the programme.Ìý Well, now it is being launched and to tell us more about it we’re joined by Blanche Shackleton, who’s their Head of Policy, Public Affairs and Campaigns.

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Blanche, I mean, first of all, what does it do, what are its features?

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Shackleton

Well, we know the negative impact that access refusals can have on guide dog owners’ confidence, independence and wellbeing and that’s why we’re launching our new campaign, which is called Open Doors.Ìý And it’s really geared towards ending access refusals.Ìý And the first part of that campaign is the launch of this new app which is free to download from all app stores.Ìý And basically, it makes it quick and easy for guide dog owners to report access refusals to us to get support or to educate businesses, either themselves or to ask us to.Ìý And, at the moment, we know that only a relatively small number of access refusals and challenges are reported to us and that makes it hard for us to understand where they’re happening.

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White

Isn’t that because in the past you’re perceived as not having done as much about it as you should have done?

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Shackleton

I think one of the things that we’re doing with this campaign is listening to guide dog owners’ concern about this, we’re hearing that they want us to do more and actually we’re demonstrating the ways that we can do more.Ìý And I think it’s going to take more than one thing to find a resolution to this problem.Ìý So, the app is one part of this.Ìý We will be able to work with and educate businesses and to spot where trends are happening.Ìý But what we also want to do this year is directly target businesses, look at what we can do to further educate staff and also to follow up on the conversation that you were just having, we were really pleased to see Sir Jeremy’s bill get passed into law but there is more that is needed from a legislative front and we need to work out what that is and then get on with campaigning for it this year.

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White

Well, is it just campaigning or does this indicate a greater willingness on the part of Guide Dogs perhaps to take up cases, indeed to fight them?

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Shackleton

Right now, our focus is on our new app, our new campaign but we’re always looking at what we can do in the longer term, we’re looking at what’s happening in this space and nothing is off the table but that’s not part of our current plans.

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White

Right.Ìý Stephen is with us.Ìý I mean how much of a step forward do you think this is?

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Anderson

In terms of the practical side of things I don’t know how much of a difference it’s going to make and other than strengthening the law, so that it is really, really solid and quite tough on people when they get it wrong, I don’t see how we’re going to bring this situation to a close.

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White

Some people, including some visually impaired people, we know this because we get emails about it, express some sympathy for taxi drivers who have genuine allergies, who have religious convictions or a genuine fear of dogs.Ìý What do you say to that?

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Anderson

Well allergies is cater for with medical exemption certificates and if they are issued then that’s not a problem.Ìý As far as other concerns, what I would say is this – you are offering a public service, if you are afraid of heights don’t become a pilot, if you don’t want to take assistance animals and you don’t have a genuine reason not to, don’t become a taxi driver.

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White

Blanche, let me bring you back on this.Ìý I mean you say that you’re hopeful that you could take this further, I’m just wondering why you don’t say straightaway, we will fight these cases.

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Shackleton

Well, we will certainly support people as they’re going through the cases.Ìý We’ve talked a lot, today, about taxis and minicabs, unfortunately, we know this problem is across different sectors as well.Ìý So, how we work to ensure that staff are trained, that they not only understand how to recognise assistance dogs but also what the law is and what they need to do to support people who are visually impaired.

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White

Stephen Anderson, Blanche Shackleton and before that Sir Jeremy Wright, thank you all very much indeed.

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And still on access, there’s been a steady stream of reactions since Mike Lambert’s item on what he felt was the inadequate provision of the British Museum on access for blind visitors.Ìý We’ve already broadcast some of your more positive reactions with examples of museums and galleries doing a good job.Ìý This from Kirsten Hearn, sums up some of your more critical views.

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Hearn (read)

Where did the progress we made from the ‘70s go?Ìý I co-created the Tate education department in what was probably the first touch tour of sculptures aimed at blind visitors.Ìý There were lots of conservation issues and little was really known about the impact of human hands on all kinds of durable materials.Ìý Initially, we had to smother ourselves in talcum powder before touching the Picasso’s or the Degas’ or Henry Moore’s etc. that were on show.Ìý At the next Sculptures for the Blind exhibition they gave us fine cotton gloves and this was all very controversial.Ìý The worries were raised by insurers and the owners of the works but the artists were really quite sanguine about having their works touched.Ìý The disability arts movement put pressure on institutions to make their collections accessible and museums began employing disabled people to advise and some really good initiatives came onstream to give blind and partially sighted people an equal experience in the galleries and museums.Ìý Of course, as time moved on, museums and galleries began seriously to feel the pinch, specialist posts disappeared and education departments began to shrink.Ìý I think we’ve done amazing things in the past and we could do them again but the culture of inclusion has changed and that is quite a challenge.

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White

Kirsten Hearn.Ìý And do keep your responses coming.

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Now, love it or loathe it, technology has the potential to transform the lives of visually impaired people.Ìý Already, there are apps – and we’ve heard about them already on this programme – that can help us with navigation, identify goods in shops or tell us when we’ve reached our stop on the bus.Ìý But what about a device which uses artificial intelligence to accurately apply lipstick?Ìý Well, believe it or not, development work is underway on exactly such a project.Ìý The device is called Smart Lipstick and today’s producer, Fern Lulham, as if she didn’t have enough to do, recently reported on this for 91Èȱ¬ World Service’s Digital Planet and she joins me now.

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Fern, first of all, tell us a bit more about this.

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Lulham

Well, Peter, as someone who has lots of lipstick but very little sight this sounded right up my street and I got the chance to interview Izabella Cavalcanti and Milene Haraguchi, who are working with the Brazilian company, Grupo Boticário as developers of this product.Ìý And I started just by asking the obvious of Milene to describe what it is.

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Haraguchi

It looks like a box and you have surface where you can support your lips and in this box we have a camera.Ìý So, this camera you take a photo of your lips, the software that we have in this machine will recognise your lips, your contour and all the different aspects of your lips and this will send some, we can say, like some coordinates, some signals to the lipstick that it’s supported with this box to apply directly the lipstick on your lips.

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Lulham

So, basically, in very untechnical terms, which I know you’ll appreciate Peter, smart lipstick uses AI to get the details it needs about your lips and then a mechanical arm, clasping a tube of lipstick, uses that information to apply it.

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White

Still sounds like pretty complex stuff, I mean how long have they been working on this?

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Lulham

Well, the original idea was back in 2015, when they planned to make a lipstick which would be invisible on any other part of your face, except from your lips.Ìý So, if you missed your mouth it wouldn’t matter, it wouldn’t be the end of the world.Ìý But that proved much more difficult than they had first imagined.Ìý So, Milene explained to me plan B.

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Haraguchi

So, we could have these novel type of not only a lipstick machine that could automatically recognise different types of lips, different types of colour, of skin tones and so on and also, could apply automatically the lipstick on your lips.Ìý So, we developed this prototype and all the functions of the machine is there, a solid lipstick or maybe a liquid lipstick, the time of application of this lipstick, the pressure of this on your lips.Ìý We still need to finish this development to have the ideal machine that we dream about.

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White

Well, dreams are all very well, what stage is the development actually at?

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Lulham

Well, the process of collecting the information about your lips is done and now they’re perfecting the application of the lipstick but that is proving complicated because the structure of your lips, as you can imagine, varies so much between individuals.Ìý Now I must admit one of my biggest worries was whether you’d have sit absolutely still for the application of this lipstick to be successful or whether one false move might just result in a painted face, entirely, a red face for many reasons.Ìý So, I asked Izabella about that and she reassured me that they are on the case.

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Cavalcanti

We know that the people tend not to stay still right, so the idea is that it’s a device that is accessible for everyone, yeah, we want that even if you’re moving you can put the lipstick on the right place.

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White

Well, let’s be honest, this is probably not a device that I’ll be using all that often, although you never know, but assuming it hits the market, how much difference would it make to you, for example, I mean is this is a real thing?

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Lulham

Well, I think it will make a lot of difference and I really don’t think that I’m alone in that.Ìý I mean I’m sure a lot of us have experienced that feeling of if I can’t do a simple everyday task without someone helping me, what can I do?Ìý And you know what it’s like, you can just get into a downward spiral from there.Ìý And we all know that the feeling of independence you get from doing things on your own is just so important, especially if you can feel confident about getting through something big like a job interview without being told afterwards that you’ve got lipstick all over your nose, which after having experienced that first hand myself, Peter, I definitely wouldn’t recommend.Ìý So, I think the emotional side of these things just isn’t understood really all the time and they really can have such a huge impact on our lives and how we feel about ourselves.

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White

So, do we know when it might come to market and how much it might cost?

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Lulham

Well, at the moment, Peter, their lips are sealed on that one.Ìý So, yeah, no definite answers to either of those questions yet but all we do know is that the developers are committed to keeping costs as low as possible.Ìý And timescales for bringing the product to market will largely be dependent on perfecting this process of applying the lipstick accurately.Ìý But regardless of those things, I think what smart lipstick illustrates to me is that the possibilities for using artificial intelligence to support visually impaired and other disabled people really do seem endless.Ìý I think the challenge now is to make more companies convinced that using AI to support independence will benefit society as a whole and to follow suit – you know, to do what this company are doing by investing their money into that.Ìý Now we can only hope that we can work together to make that happen, sooner rather than later, but I do think it’s always exciting to think about what the future might hold.Ìý So, come on then, Peter, if it’s not lipstick for you, what would you like AI to be able to do for you?

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White

Ah, well, I’m still waiting for the automaton butler that we’ve actually – we were promised that, we’ve been promised that for decades.Ìý So, that’s – you know, I’m being ambitious.

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Lulham

One day.

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White

But I’m also going to dodge the question and pass it to our listeners.Ìý Let’s have your suggestions of what AI developers should be working on.Ìý You can email intouch@bbc.co.uk, you can leave your voice messages on 0161 8361338 or go to our website bbc.co.uk/intouch where you can download tonight’s and previous editions of the programme.

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From me, Peter White, from tonight’s producer, complete with smart lippy, Fern Lulham and studio managers Jonathan Esp and Nat Stokes, goodbye.