Recordstake

West Jordan, Utah

ADA Title II · What counts

Does ADA Title II cover your old PDFs?

Yes, unless a narrow exception applies — and being old is not one of them. There are exactly two exceptions, and the biggest factor in what this costs you is which of your documents they actually remove.

The two exceptions, and only the two exceptions

28 CFR 35.201 excepts two things from the rule, and nothing else:

  • Archived web content — but only where all four conditions hold: it was created before the deadline; it is retained only for reference, research or recordkeeping; it has not been altered since being archived; and it sits in a dedicated area clearly identified as archived.
  • Preexisting conventional electronic documents — PDFs, Word files, spreadsheets and the like created before the deadline — unless they are currently used to apply for, gain access to, or participate in a service, program or activity.

That is the whole list. A document that is old, embarrassing, poorly formatted, or one nobody remembers publishing is still covered unless it fits one of these two shapes.

Why age does not help you, and this is the part most people get wrong

Every published explanation of this rule mentions "preexisting documents" as if age were most of the answer. It is not, and the reason is specific: the rule's own deadline is still in the future — 26 April 2027 for larger entities, 26 April 2028 for smaller ones and special districts. Full dates and sources here.

Because that date has not arrived yet, every document your agency publishes today was, by definition, created before it. "Preexisting" is not a high bar to clear — right now, everything clears it automatically. Age discriminates nothing. The entire weight of the second exception falls on four words: currently used to apply, gain access, or participate.

That is a fact about how your organization actually uses a document, not a fact about the file itself — and it is why the honest answer to "how old does a document have to be" is that the question does not currently apply.

What a website crawl can see, and what it cannot

A crawl can see one real signal: whether a document is linked from a live departmental page, or from a section your agency has itself labeled as archived. Where you have made that distinction yourself, it is your own evidence rather than our inference, and it is usually the strongest evidence available from outside.

It cannot see the rest. Two of the four conditions the archived-content exception requires — whether a document has been altered since archiving, and whether it is retained only for reference, research or recordkeeping — are statements about intent and history that no crawl can observe. Nor can a crawl see how many people currently open a preexisting document; that needs your own page-view figures.

This is why a free scan comes back with a real "undetermined" share, and why that is not a weakness in the analysis. When we inventory a library from outside, roughly three quarters of it comes back undetermined — not guessed at, not rounded down to zero, stated as exactly what it is: a fact a crawler cannot see, honestly marked as unknown rather than assumed either way.

Four questions that close most of that gap — each one a five-minute conversation with somebody at your agency who already knows the answer, no preparation required.

We are not attorneys and this is not legal advice. We produce evidence and a recommendation you can hand to your counsel, who decides.

Find out where your own documents land

The free scan sorts your library into what is likely covered, what an exception likely removes, and what nobody outside your agency can determine — as shares of the whole, with an honest count of what could not be settled from outside.

Get the free scan
Three fields — your agency, its website, and where to send the result. Nothing to install, nothing to sign, and no meeting.

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