Supreme Court Lets Texas Enforce Law Requiring App Stores To Verify Users’ Ages

The U.S. Supreme Court is letting Texas enforce a law that requires children to obtain parental consent to download apps as a challenge plays out in a lower court. Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed the App Store Accountability Act in May 2025, which requires app stores run by Apple and Google to verify a user’s age before downloading an app. Users under 18 would need a parent or guardian to consent to every app they download. Republicans say the law will help prevent children from accessing harmful content. However, a group of students, Students Engaged in Advancing Texas, and a tech group, Computer & Communications Industry Association, challenged the law, arguing it violates the First Amendment. In an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court, the plaintiffs argued that the law unconstitutionally “deputizes app stores to police both minors’ and adults’ threshold access to vast amounts of online speech.”Texas objected, saying in a filing, “A minor child who downloads a software application from an app store agrees to contractual terms of service, including whether the child’s location will be tracked, whether the child’s privacy will be protected, whether information from the child’s phone can be sold by the developer, and whether the child waives the right to sue.”On Monday, the Supreme Court declined to block the law, with no noted dissents. In December, a federal district court judge, Robert Pitman, blocked the law. The judge found that it “restricts access to a vast universe of speech by requiring Texans to prove their age before downloading a mobile app or accessing paid content within those apps.”In May, a three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit stayed Judge Pitman’s ruling, allowing the state law to take effect while the challenge plays out. The Supreme Court’s decision does not resolve the matter, but keeps the Fifth Circuit’s stay in place. In a statement, the president of the CCIA, Matt Schruers, said, “People should not have to turn over personal data to access the internet any more than they should show government identification to enter a bookstore.”The Supreme Court’s decision comes as lawmakers in America and dozens of countries are considering ways to protect children from what they say are the harms of social media. More than 40 countries have considered the idea of banning children from social media, with 15 countries actively considering such bans. Last month, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the United Kingdom would implement a similar ban. Twenty states have passed laws that aim to restrict minors’ access to social media by requiring the platforms to verify users’ ages. But questions linger about whether such restrictions are legal. Free speech advocates argue that not enough evidence is available to prove a correlation between social media use and mental health harms for children. They also note that companies such as Apple and Google have announced new parental controls that make it easier for parents to limit what content their children can access. Federal district court judges tend to block laws when they are challenged. However, federal appellate courts have let age verification laws in Ohio and Florida take effect. The Supreme Court has yet to weigh in on social media bans. Last year, the justices voted six to three to uphold a Texas law that required age verification for porn sites. The law’s challengers argued that it imposes a burden on adult access to protected expression. However, the court said the law “only incidentally burdens the protected speech of adults.”Last year, the justices also rejected a request to temporarily prevent Mississippi from enforcing its law that requires children to obtain their parents’ consent to open a social media account. That case is also playing out in a lower court. Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in a concurrence that the law is “likely unconstitutional.”

Supreme Court Lets Texas Enforce Law Requiring App Stores To Verify Users’ Ages

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