Senate Bill 2420, set to take effect Jan. 1, would require app stores to verify users’ ages and limit access for those under 18, a mandate that tech groups and students are challenging in federal court.
Patrick Semansky/Associated Press file photo
A federal judge has temporarily blocked a new Texas law that would require app stores to verify users’ ages and impose restrictions on those under 18.
Saying the law likely violates free speech rights guaranteed by the First Amendment, U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman granted an injunction Tuesday against Senate Bill 2420, known as the App Store Accountability Act. It was to have taken effect Jan. 1. His decision came after a hearing Dec. 16 in Austin.
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U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman speaks to the San Antonio Express-News editorial board in late 2015.
San Antonio Express-News file photo
“The act is akin 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,” Pitman wrote.
Attorney General Ken Paxton said he’d appeal the ruling.
The request for injunction stemmed from two lawsuits filed in October challenging the act. The suits — filed by the Computer & Communications Industry Association and Students Engaged in Advancing Texas, along with two Texas teens — argue the law’s content-based restrictions violate free speech rights and pose privacy and safety risks.
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It would require app stores to ensure users are over 18 or obtain parental consent before allowing them to download or purchase an app. The law, which has exceptions for emergency service and test-prep apps, would also require new users to submit a government-issued ID to verify their ages and secure parental or guardian consent for minors to create an account.
Tech companies like Apple Inc. and Google parent Alphabet Inc. objected to the law, calling it a violation of privacy and security and saying it would impact all apps, including those dedicated to weather, news or sports.
When Gov. Greg Abbott signed SB 2420 in May, he said it would help “protect children who are trapped by predators into situations beyond their control.”
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Its passage came shortly before the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in favor of another Texas law requiring pornography websites to verify that users are over the age of 18 either by uploading a government-issued ID or through a third-party age-verification system.
Pitman said he granted the injunction because the law’s content-based restrictions require the highest level of judicial review to determine whether the act violates the First Amendment.
In doing so, he sided with the Computer & Communications Industry Association and the student plaintiffs, agreeing that the content-based nature of the law poses threats to freedom of speech.
Brian Willen, an attorney for the industry association, said in last week’s hearing that what he referred to as the “boa constrictor statute” was unconstitutional because it imposes “wildly overbroad” limits on app stores, which he said function like shopping malls or libraries. He argued that SB 2420, unlike the law aimed at pornography sites, lacks wording that limits its reach to unprotected speech.
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“This order stops the Texas App Store Accountability Act from taking effect in order to preserve the First Amendment rights of app stores, app developers, parents and younger internet users,” Stephanie Joyce, the association’s senior vice president and chief of staff, said in a statement Tuesday. “It also protects parents’ inviolate right to use their own judgment in safeguarding their children online using the myriad tools our members provide”
Pitman’s 20-page order closely tracked some language in the students’ lawsuit.
“Just as the government could not compel a bookstore to screen patrons and stop minors from purchasing any book without parental approval, the state cannot ban minors from downloading digital content through app stores or within apps without parental consent,” their suit says.
The state, however, argued last week that the law was formed to safeguard the mental health and well-being of Texas children and that the law was purposely vague and all encompassing to avoid the content-based, strict scrutiny arguments.
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Paxton’s office did not respond to a request for comment on the ruling but later filed a notice of appeal.
Pitman said that while the law is “more likely than not unconstitutional,” he sees the importance of safeguarding children from the mental health ramifications of smartphones and other mobile devices.
“Many parents, educators, researchers and mental health professionals have sounded the alarm that children are spending too much time on their phones, scrolling social media or playing games that are often designed to encourage prolonged use, instead of interacting in real life,” he wrote.
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Pitman, who was appointed by President Barack Obama, previously granted temporary injunctions in a pair of challenges to another Texas age-restriction law. That law, the Securing Children Online through Parental Empowerment Act, or SCOPE, requires social media companies to put in place various protections for users under 18. In those injunctions, which the state has since appealed, Pitman said the law restricts overly broad categories that could extend into advocacy conversations and blocks “the democratic exchange of views online.”
Now that the injunction has been granted, the App Store Accountability Act will not be allowed to take effect until the lawsuits are resolved.