The Supreme Court on Monday allowed Texas to enforce a law that makes app stores and developers check users’ ages and obtain parental consent before children and teens under 18 can download or buy apps.
The order leaves the Texas App Store Accountability Act in force while a lower-court fight continues. A student advocacy organization and the Computer and Communications Industry Association had asked the justices for an emergency stay, arguing that the law should remain paused until the case is resolved.
The statute, signed in May 2025, turns app distribution into an age-gated transaction. App stores and developers must use age verification tools to determine whether a user is under 18. If the user is a minor, the law requires parental consent before the app can be downloaded or purchased. Developers also must assign age ratings to their apps.
That last requirement is one of the pieces the tech industry objects to. CCIA, whose members include Google, Meta and Apple, has called the app-rating mandate burdensome. The group said it plans to show that the Texas law violates the First Amendment.
In a statement, CCIA said people should not have to provide personal data to access the internet, comparing the requirement to showing government identification before entering a bookstore. Youth advocates and tech companies also argue that the law infringes children’s First Amendment rights.
The legal path so far
The Texas law has already bounced between courts. A federal judge in Texas blocked enforcement in December. Last month, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated the law, allowing Texas to start enforcing it unless the Supreme Court stepped in.
The Supreme Court did not do that. Its Monday order means the state can enforce the law while the Fifth Circuit continues to consider the case. The appeals court is scheduled to hear arguments in August.
The fight sits in a wider state-level push to force age verification into online services used by children. Supporters describe these laws as child-safety measures. Opponents say they turn routine internet access into a data-collection checkpoint and chill lawful speech.
States back Texas
More than two dozen state attorneys general, from both parties, filed an amicus brief last month supporting Texas. The brief argued that existing parental controls have failed, especially on social media platforms.
The attorneys general wrote that platforms have offered parental controls for years, but those tools have not reduced what the brief called child addiction. The brief said parents often do not use the controls and that the controls themselves are ineffective.
The Supreme Court has already sided with Texas in a separate age-verification dispute. Last year, the justices upheld another Texas law aimed at preventing children from accessing pornography websites.
The app store case is broader because it reaches general-purpose software distribution rather than adult sites. If the Texas law survives, app stores and developers will have to treat age status and parental approval as part of the download flow, not an optional family-settings feature buried somewhere in the account menu.
This story draws on original reporting from The Record.
