Live streams of the Federal Assembly will be subtitled in future
Published: Tuesday, May 28th 2024, 13:00
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The live broadcasts of debates in the Federal Assembly will be subtitled live in future. After the National Council, the Council of States also approved a bill on Tuesday that will enable deaf and hard of hearing people to follow the debates.
The small chamber approved a bill from the National Council that takes up the main demands of a parliamentary initiative by Aargau SP National Councillor Gabriela Suter. The plan is to use speech recognition software to create subtitles, supplemented by manual corrections.
According to Andrea Caroni (FDP/AR), the rapporteur of the preliminary consultation committee, this use of artificial intelligence reduces the originally assumed costs of CHF 600,000 to between CHF 100,000 and around CHF 250,000 per year. This is for the operation, maintenance and further development of the system.
In addition, there are one-off investment costs of 50,000 to 100,000 francs. Caroni said this in the Council on Tuesday. The subtitles will be written in the language of the speaker.
The small chamber unanimously approved the corresponding amendment to the Ordinance of the Federal Assembly on the Parliament Act and on the Parliamentary Administration on Tuesday. In March, the National Council had said yes by 181 votes to 5. The bill still has to go to a final vote.
Suter also wanted some parliamentary debates to be interpreted into sign language in future. The amendment to the ordinance says nothing about this. However, this point could be examined at a later date, according to the National Council Office's report on the bill. A selective translation of individual debates could be implemented without a legal amendment.
In twelve to eighteen months
According to parliamentary documents, the Swiss Association for the Hearing Impaired puts the number of hearing-impaired people in Switzerland at 600,000. This number of people will therefore be able to follow the Council debates in the original language without barriers in future.
Other European parliaments have also introduced subtitling. The Office of the National Council assumes that subtitling will be ready in twelve to eighteen months.
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