This article is general information, not legal advice. Check with your city attorney or county counsel about how these rules apply to your agency.
Clerks are often asked whether automatic captions can take the place of CART, the human real-time captioning service. The honest answer is that each has a role, and many agencies will use both.
What each one is
CART (Communication Access Realtime Translation) is live captioning by a trained human captioner, either in the room or working remotely. It is usually scheduled ahead of time for a specific meeting.
Automatic captions, like SentraCaptions, are produced by software from the meeting audio. Captions appear about one second after speech, and the sentence in progress updates live. Because they run from the stream your agency already sends, they can be on for every meeting without booking anyone.
Every SentraCaptions screen labels the captions as automatic and says they may contain errors. That label is there on purpose: residents should know what they are reading.
Where automatic captions fit well
Automatic captions are a practical way to put captions on meetings that would otherwise have none. They work well when you want:
- Captions on every meeting, including planning commissions, committees and special meetings, not just the ones where someone asked ahead of time.
- Live translation. SentraCaptions translates into the languages you choose for each meeting, up to 8 per meeting from 75 supported languages. Residents read along on the chamber screen or on their phones.
- Captions in several places at once: a full-screen chamber display, a phone page residents open with a QR code (no app, no sign-in), and one caption language on your YouTube Live stream.
- Transcripts afterward in every language, as TXT or SRT files.
- No new hardware. It is one more destination on the encoder you already stream with.
The DOJ's ADA Title II web rule requires state and local government web content and mobile apps to meet WCAG 2.1 Level AA, which includes success criterion 1.2.4, Captions (Live). Automatic captions can help an agency work toward that for its live streams. Whether a particular approach meets the rule for your agency is a question for your city attorney or county counsel.
Where CART should be considered
Automatic captions don't replace CART for every situation. When a deaf or hard-of-hearing resident requests CART as an accommodation to take part in a meeting, the agency should give that request serious consideration. Under the ADA, public entities have a duty of effective communication, and the person's choice of aid or service is given primary consideration. Talk to your ADA coordinator and counsel about how to respond to a specific request.
Other situations where a human captioner may be worth considering:
- A resident who relies on captions plans to speak or follow a specific item closely, such as an appeal or a hearing that affects them directly.
- The meeting is expected to have heavy technical vocabulary, many speakers talking over each other, or poor audio.
- Your agency has a policy or past commitment to provide CART for a certain type of meeting.
None of this is legal advice. The point is that an automatic caption service is a baseline, not a substitute for an individual accommodation process.
Using both together
Many agencies will find a layered approach makes sense:
- Automatic captions on by default for every streamed meeting, with translation into the languages your community uses.
- A clear way to request accommodations, including CART, listed on the agenda and on your public meetings webpage.
- CART scheduled when a resident requests it or when your ADA coordinator decides it is needed.
Automatic captions also help residents who would never think to request an accommodation: someone watching in a noisy place, someone who hears fine but follows better with text, or a resident who reads Spanish or Vietnamese more comfortably than English.
Getting the most from automatic captions
Automatic captions are only as good as the audio and the vocabulary they get. A few steps make a real difference:
- Build a glossary of local names: council members, streets, neighborhoods and programs, so captions spell them right. See building a caption glossary.
- Use the microphones. Ask members, staff and public speakers to speak into the mic. See chamber audio tips.
- Pause for recess and closed session. While paused, nothing is captioned, translated, stored or billed, and screens show "Paused".
- Set expectations. Note on the agenda that captions are automatic and may contain errors, and explain how to request CART or other accommodations.
A note on SB 707
SB 707, the Brown Act modernization bill signed October 3, 2025, does not itself require live captions. It does ask eligible legislative bodies to translate agendas into applicable languages, to reasonably assist members of the public who want to translate a meeting or receive interpretation, and to make reasonable efforts to reach communities that don't traditionally participate. Captions and live translation are a practical way to support those language-access and participation goals. Confirm with counsel whether your body is covered.