{"id":342,"date":"2026-07-06T20:13:55","date_gmt":"2026-07-06T20:13:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/americanservicereview.com\/?p=342"},"modified":"2026-07-06T20:13:55","modified_gmt":"2026-07-06T20:13:55","slug":"supreme-court-allows-texas-to-enforce-law-requiring-age-verification-and-parental-consent-on-apps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/americanservicereview.com\/?p=342","title":{"rendered":"Supreme Court allows Texas to enforce law requiring age verification and parental consent on apps"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The Supreme Court on Monday allowed Texas to continue to enforce, at least for now, a law that requires app stores to verify its buyers\u2019 ages and obtain parental consent for minors to download apps and to purchase paid content within those apps. In a pair of brief, unsigned orders issued on Monday afternoon, the down requests to reinstate orders by a federal judge in Austin that barred the state from implementing the law. There were no public dissents from the orders.<\/p>\n

Read more The justices remained busy last summer. This year, will they actually get a break?<\/a><\/p>\n

The law at the center of the dispute is the\u00a0Texas App Store Accountability Act, also known as SB 2420. There are two separate sets of challengers in the case. The first set, led by a group known as Students Engaged in Advancing Texas, which that its members \u201cuse mobile apps to teach other kids how to get involved in policymaking,\u201d went to federal court last October to challenge the law before it could go into effect on Jan. 1, 2026. The second challenger, the Computer and Communications Industry Association, a trade group that represents (among others) app stores and app developers, filed a similar challenge the same day. In both cases, the challengers argue (among other things) that SB 2420 violates the First Amendment.<\/p>\n

U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman\u00a0issued an order in December that \u00a0\u00a0the state from enforcing SB 2420. But last month, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit\u00a0, prompting the challengers to come to the Supreme Court a few days later.<\/p>\n

In asking the Supreme Court to reinstate Pitman\u2019s orders, the students\u00a0told the justices that the 5th Circuit\u2019s decision \u201cwould render virtually the entire internet\u2014not to mention the distribution of every book, newspaper, magazine, movie, or record album\u2014\u2018commercial speech\u2019 the government could more readily ban, restrict, edit, or compel. That is clearly wrong.\u201d Moreover, they noted, Texas already shields children from accessing adult content online, in a separate law that the Supreme Court upheld last year. Therefore, the students said, SB 2420\u2019s stated goal of protecting them \u201cfrom \u2018accessing harmful or inappropriate content\u2019 \u2026 is not a valid government interest.\u201d<\/p>\n

In its own brief, the \u00a0that the 5th Circuit\u2019s decision \u201chas upset the status quo by allowing the Act to be enforced for the first time, exposing app stores and millions of app developers to potential liability\u201d and subjecting them to \u201cenormous and unrecoverable compliance costs.\u201d And in any event, the group added, the app stores that the CCIA\u2019s members operate already \u201cprovide various, voluntary tools that enable parents to control their children\u2019s exposure to apps and content.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more The powerful, resilient, independent Supreme Court<\/a><\/p>\n

Texas that SB 2420 regulates commercial transactions, rather than speech \u2013 specifically, the conditions in which young people can agree to contractual terms and conditions required to downland an app. \u201cIn the same way that the State can deny drivers\u2019 licenses to children under sixteen,\u201d it argued, \u201ceven though some fourteen-year-olds may wish to drive to a bookstore and purchase a book, the State can restrict children\u2019s downloads of software applications to mobile devices as a product category, even if some children may wish to use applications to engage in expressive conduct.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moreover, the state continued, because SB 2420 regulates all apps, \u201cregardless of their content,\u201d the district court applied the wrong constitutional test to determine that the law violates the First Amendment. Pitman should have applied, at most, a less stringent one, known as intermediate scrutiny, the state wrote. And the law can pass that test, the state asserted: as the court of appeals held, \u201c\u2018Requiring age verification, parental consent, and app-related content ratings likely directly and materially advances Texas\u2019s substantial interest in protecting children\u2019s data, safety, and privacy in a digital world.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Finally, the state said, at the very least, Pitman\u2019s orders were the kind of \u201cuniversal injunction\u201d that the court barred last year in its decision in , because they prohibit the state \u201cfrom enforcing S. B. 2420 against anyone, not just the Plaintiffs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Is the Roberts court hyperopic or willfully blind?<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Supreme Court on Monday allowed Texas to continue to enforce, at least for now, a law that requires app stores to verify its buyers\u2019 ages and obtain parental consent for minors to download apps and to purchase paid content within those apps. In a pair of brief, unsigned orders issued on Monday afternoon, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":286,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-court-news"],"yoast_head":"\nSupreme Court allows Texas to enforce law requiring age verification and parental consent on apps - American Service Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/americanservicereview.com\/?p=342\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Supreme Court allows Texas to enforce law requiring age verification and parental consent on apps - American Service Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Supreme Court on Monday allowed Texas to continue to enforce, at least for now, a law that requires app stores to verify its buyers\u2019 ages and obtain parental consent for minors to download apps and to purchase paid content within those apps. 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