香港 · Hong Kong
你好。這是我們的故事。
We made the news sign every day. It took a licence, not a law.
Access on this page: Signed: Hong Kong Sign Language — pending How this page is tested
Hong Kong Sign Language is not an official language; the Basic Law names Chinese and English. On 11 January 2017 a motion in the Legislative Council to recognise HKSL failed. So the Deaf community went to the broadcast regulator instead. On 3 October 2017 the Communications Authority directed TVB to put a sign-language interpreter on its Cantonese news every day, from 3 July 2018 — the broadcaster had argued there were not enough interpreters in the city. By the 2025 licence renewal the condition read: more than 25 minutes of signed Cantonese news a day, and the Consumer Council asked for more. The right is a licence condition. The delivery is 25 minutes.
HKSL video — this story, in our language
A named Hong Kong Deaf creator tells this page's story in HKSL. The video is the page, and the text is its transcript's cousin. This video existing is the reason this page is allowed to exist.
Twenty-five minutes a day is the condition.
The other twenty-three and a half hours are ours to build.
What do you want to do?
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I want access
Watch.Understand.Belong.
Television, film, and services — in HKSL, captions, or audio description.
Go -
I create access
Create.Get paid.Be seen.
Deaf signers, interpreters, captioners, audio describers — your work, your name, your income.
Go -
I provide access
One API.Every screen.
Platforms, governments, cinemas, companies — deliver real access with one integration.
Go -
I back access
Host.Sponsor.Invest.
The builders who will take a licence condition and make it the whole day — be part of the firsts.
Go
More than one of these can be yours. The access is for you, and you can be paid to help make it.
Access in Hong Kong today
The law now says:
Discrimination on the ground of disability, including hearing impairment, has been unlawful since the Disability Discrimination Ordinance, Cap. 487, enacted in 1995. Free-television licences require a sign-language interpreter on Cantonese news for more than 25 minutes a day — a Communications Authority direction first issued to TVB on 3 October 2017, in force from 3 July 2018 — and subtitles on programmes between 7 p.m. and 11 p.m.
And we know the exhausting part: the motion to recognise our language was defeated on 11 January 2017. The broadcaster's defence against a daily bulletin was that Hong Kong did not have enough interpreters — which is our point, not theirs.
Twenty-five minutes is a licence condition. The delivery comes next — made by us. That is what ally is: Deaf and blind creators, paid to make the access — HKSL, captions, audio description — delivered to any screen.
In plain words
The law is on your side. What is missing is the service — and that is what gets built here, with the community.
Why captions alone are not enough → Why sign language
Talk to us
Tell us who you are
Write in your own language. We reply in it.
- Emailpartners@a11y.media
- Video messageSend a signed video — no writing needed
Contact us by form, email, or a signed video message — never voice-only.