SCOTUS allows Texas age-verification law for app stores (for now)
The Supreme Court is allowing Texas to enforce a law that requires app store users to verify their age.
On Monday, the Supreme Court allowed Texas to enforce a state law requiring app stores to verify users' ages and obtain parental consent for minors who want to download apps or make purchases on their phones, the Associated Press and others reported.
The law is called the Texas App Store Accountability Act, or SB 2420, according to SCOTUSblog. SB 2420 requires app stores, primarily Apple's and Google's, to use a "commercially reasonable method" to verify the age of account users, though the law doesn't specify what those methods could be. If the account belongs to someone under 18, it must be linked to a parent or guardian's account to obtain permission to make downloads or purchases.
SEE ALSO: All the states Pornhub is blocked in nowTwo groups have sued to block the law: the Computer and Communications Industry Association and Students Engaged in Advancing Texas. Both have claimed that the law violates the First Amendment right to free speech.
In Dec. 2025, U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman temporarily blocked enforcement of the law, but last month, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit put those orders on hold, SCOTUSblog reported. This prompted the groups to file a petition with the Supreme Court.
On July 6, Justice Samuel Alito denied both petitions, allowing the law to stand for now.
"Every day the law is enforced, Applicants are denied their basic rights to organize, advocate, express ideas, and discover new perspectives through the most important medium for human communication," attorneys for Students Engaged in Advancing Texas wrote in their filing.
In their own filing, attorneys for the Computer and Communications Industry Association stated, "No State has ever required its citizens to prove their age before reading a newspaper, entering a bookstore, or even accessing the internet. Texas Senate Bill 2420...does exactly that — for every mobile app on every mobile phone."
On June 1, when the Court of Appeals issued its decision, Attorney General Ken Paxton, the defendant in both cases, stated, "Parents deserve to know what their children are downloading and to have the ability to stop them from accessing harmful or inappropriate content."
Last year, SCOTUS upheld Texas's age-verification law, requiring similar age checks to view explicit content.