{"id":363634,"date":"2026-07-07T05:36:20","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T05:36:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/363634\/"},"modified":"2026-07-07T05:36:20","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T05:36:20","slug":"us-supreme-court-clears-path-for-texas-to-enforce-app-age-verification-law-child-rights-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/363634\/","title":{"rendered":"US Supreme Court clears path for Texas to enforce app age verification law | Child Rights News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Parents must approve app downloads for minors as legal fight over Texas age verification law continues.<\/p>\n

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Published On 6 Jul 20266 Jul 2026<\/p>\n

The US Supreme Court has cleared<\/a> the way for Texas to begin enforcing a law that requires app stores to verify users\u2019 ages and obtain parental consent before minors can download apps or make in-app purchases, while a legal challenge continues.<\/p>\n

The law, known as the App Store Accountability Act, was signed<\/a> by Republican Governor Greg Abbott in 2025. It requires app store accounts belonging to anyone under 18 to be linked to a parent or guardian. Before a child or teenager can download any app, parents must be notified of its age rating and approve the download.<\/p>\n

Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list<\/p>\n

Texas urged the court to allow the law to continue to be enforced while a constitutional challenge to it plays out in the lower courts. The state\u2019s Solicitor General William Peterson is arguing that \u201cthe modern digital world is different\u201d from the physical world and that the law was needed since children can access \u201cany conceivable content\u201d online without their parents\u2019 knowledge.<\/p>\n

But critics say the law goes much further than protecting children.<\/p>\n

The challenge was brought by two students, a student advocacy group called Students Engaged in Advancing Texas, and the Computer & Communications Industry Association, whose members include app store operators Apple and Google.<\/p>\n

They argue<\/a> the law violates the US Constitution\u2019s First Amendment protections for free speech by forcing app stores to verify users\u2019 ages before they can access online content.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo state has ever required its citizens to prove their age before reading a newspaper, entering a bookstore, or even accessing the internet,\u201d the Computer & Communications Industry Association wrote. \u201cThe Texas law does exactly that \u2014 for every mobile app on every mobile phone.\u201d<\/p>\n

That comparison was echoed by a federal judge who blocked the law in December. US District Judge Robert Pitman said the measure was similar to requiring every bookstore to check the age of customers before letting them inside and then requiring parental permission before minors could buy a book.<\/p>\n

But in June, a federal appeals court allowed the law to take effect while the legal battle continued, saying that Texas has a \u201csubstantial, if not compelling, interest in protecting children, and parents need to have the necessary information to make informed choices affecting their children\u2019s upbringing.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Monday, the Supreme Court declined to intervene, leaving the appeals court\u2019s decision in place.<\/p>\n

The decision comes a year after the Supreme Court upheld a separate Texas law requiring age verification for pornographic websites, rejecting arguments from the adult entertainment industry that the measure violated adults\u2019 First Amendment rights. That ruling split the court 6-3, with the six conservative justices in the majority and the three liberal justices dissenting.<\/p>\n

The measure is part of a broader push in the United States and elsewhere to give parents more oversight of children\u2019s online activity and limit the potential harms of social media. Last year, Australia became the first country to ban social media<\/a> for under-16s.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Parents must approve app downloads for minors as legal fight over Texas age verification law continues. Published On…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":363635,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28885,128935,2919,815,1758,223,11139,27,29,28,464],"class_list":["post-363634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-australia","tag-child-rights","tag-civil-rights","tag-courts","tag-internet","tag-news","tag-regulation","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=363634"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363634\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/363635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=363634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=363634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=363634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}