ReadSpeaker

Municipality of Ommen

ReadSpeaker is a feature on the council’s website. This feature reads out text aloud. Visitors can click a button to have web pages read aloud. This makes the website easier to use for people with visual impairments, dyslexia or language difficulties. It helps visitors to understand the information better.

Last change on 17th of June 2026, at 8:01 (CET) | Publication Standard 1.0

• Publication category: Other algorithms
• Impact assessment: Field not filled in.
• Status: In use

General information

Theme

Organisation and business operations

Begin date

2009-01

Contact information

[e-mail]

Responsible use

Goal and impact

ReadSpeaker uses technology to convert written text on the council’s website into spoken language. This helps people who find reading difficult, such as those with a visual impairment or dyslexia. Visitors can click a button to have the text read aloud. As the text is read aloud, the words are also highlighted on the screen. This makes it easier for residents to find information about council services and news.

Considerations

Using ReadSpeaker has a significant advantage: it makes the council’s website more accessible to many residents. By automatically reading text aloud, people with visual impairments, dyslexia or limited language skills can understand the information more easily. This contributes to inclusive service provision and complies with digital accessibility regulations. This feature also helps residents find information themselves, without needing assistance from the local authority.

One drawback is that the speech sometimes does not sound entirely natural, particularly with abbreviations or specialised terms. There may also be questions about how data is processed or about reliance on a single supplier. However, the impact of this is minimal, as the technology merely converts text to speech and does not make any decisions. The use of ReadSpeaker is therefore reasonably justifiable. The technology primarily helps with the accessibility of information and carries few risks, whilst offering clear benefits for residents who would otherwise struggle with digital information.

Human intervention

When using ReadSpeaker, human intervention remains necessary in the form of editing, managing and monitoring the content of the council’s website. Council staff are responsible for writing, checking and publishing the texts that appear on the website. ReadSpeaker merely reads these texts aloud and does not create any new texts itself.

Risk management

1. Limited understanding of context – The algorithm converts text to speech. It does not always understand the text properly. As a result, the intonation may sometimes not match the meaning.

2. Dependence on the quality of the source text – The algorithm reads the text exactly as it is written. If the text is unclear or lengthy, this is also evident in the spoken version.

3. These issues mainly affect how the user experiences the text. The content of the information does not change; the algorithm simply converts the text into spoken language.

Legal basis

The local authority must ensure that digital information is accessible to everyone. This means that the information must be understandable and useful to all residents. The local authority must also comply with data protection legislation.

Links to legal bases

• Digital Accessibility Act (Wdo): https://communicatierijk.nl/vakkennis/rijkswebsites/verplichte-richtlijnen/digitale-toegankelijkheid
• Decree on Digital Accessibility in the Public Sector: https://wetten.overheid.nl/BWBR0040936

Operations

Data

All text (content) on the website can be read aloud.

Technical design

The text-to-speech software on our website, ReadSpeaker, incorporates a Deep Neural Network (DNN) algorithm. “ReadSpeaker uses next-generation Deep Neural Network (DNN) technology to structurally improve voice quality at all levels”. This means that ReadSpeaker uses advanced technology – based on neural networks – to structurally improve the quality of text-to-speech conversion.

External provider

ReadSpeaker