App store age verification law back on in Texas, but more challenges coming

A Texas law that puts age assurance requirements on app stores can stand – for now. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has sided with Attorney General Ken Paxton, pausing a 2025 federal district court injunction blocking Senate Bill 2420 until further legal notice.

The App Store Accountability Act requires app stores, such as those operated by Google or Apple, to verify a user’s age using “commercially reasonable methods.” It requires accounts belonging to minors to be linked to a parent or guardian account. Minors must get a parent or guardian’s permission before they can download apps or make in-app purchases. And developers must give their apps age ratings.

In a report from New4SA, Paxton says “parents deserve to know what their children are downloading and to have the ability to stop them from accessing harmful or inappropriate content.”

The initial complaints came from the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA) and Students Engaged in Advancing Texas (SEAT), an advocacy group. Both entities filed separate lawsuits last year, alleging that SB 2420 violates the First Amendment.

U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman agreed, saying that SB 2420 goes beyond unprotected or traditionally regulated content to restrict access to “a vast universe of speech.” His ruling compared it to “a law that would require every bookstore to verify the age of every customer at the door and, for minors, require parental consent before the child or teen could enter and again when they try to purchase a book.”

A statement from SEAT, a student-led group that aims to influence policy to reflect youth voices and preserve youth rights, argues that “students have just as much a right to access information as adults, and this law denies them that access.”

The CCIA says it believes the temporary stay on the injunction is just that – a brief reprieve before the law is ultimately blocked.

Information argument stuck between ideologies

The tech sector continues to consider the question of who should shoulder the responsibility for age checks: app stores, platforms or parents.

But in Texas (and elsewhere in the U.S.) it hinges on what one considers to be beneficial or harmful content. Not everyone agrees with Paxton’s statement that “parents deserve to know what their children are downloading.” SEAT, a progressive student advocacy group, sees the issue through the lens of the LGBTQ community, and the fear of persecution. Paxton, now a Republican Senate nominee slated to have his first in-person meeting with Donald Trump this week, used his Senate primary runoff victory speech to mock transgender children – a good indication that SEAT’s fears are justified.

Meanwhile, Big App – Apple, Google and maybe Samsung – continues to try and placate lawmakers with declared age range APIs and other safety tools designed to protect youth. But this fight may not have the same teeth that NetChoice, which litigates on behalf of the largest social media firms, has used to gnash at state-level social media age check legislation across the U.S. Globally, age verification for app stores is being embraced as part of a layered online safety and security posture.

That said, the American legal landscape continues to evolve along its own path, following the clarion call of the First Amendment. Google and Apple are likely to follow the law; it is up to the U.S. court system to determine where it takes them.

Article Topics

age verification  |  app store age verification  |  Computer & Communications Industry Association  |  Texas age verification