GrapheneOS has been working towards providing accessibility for blind users so we include our own build of TalkBack. We plan to include a text-to-speech (TTS) app and Setup Wizard integration to make it usable out-of-the-box. We can’t do much to make installing more accessible.

Unfortunately, some banks are trying to make life harder for blind people and others reliant on accessibility services. A few have started banning using their app if a non-Google accessibility service app is installed, even if it’s not activated (TalkBack is off by default).

Our users have determined that this is easy to work around by disabling the app rather than the accessibility service not being activated. It’s possible for those apps to see that it’s not activated and they can see it’s a first party OS component so it makes very little sense.

We’ve been working on an App Communication Scopes feature for disallowing apps from seeing or communicating with apps in the same profile with toggles to allow specific cases. We have some of the infrastructure in the OS already for specific cases and can start using it for this.

So far, only EU banks appear to be doing this which is convenient since we already have contact with the EU Commission with a focus on the anti-competitive Play Integrity API many banks have adopted. They’re not going to be impressed by banks banning open source screen readers…