Supreme Court won’t block Texas from enforcing a law requiring age verification for app downloads
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday refused to block Texas from enforcing a state law that requires app stores to verify users’ ages and obtain parental consent for minors who want to download apps or make in-app purchases on cellphones.
In a one-sentence order, Justice Samuel Alito rejected petitions from plaintiffs who argued that the Texas App Store Liability Act violated users’ constitutional rights to free speech.
Last month, a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the law could go into effect. The board last December suspended a district court ruling that the law was unconstitutional.
Plaintiffs suing to block the law include the Computer and Communications Industry Association and Advancing Students Working in Texas. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is a defendant in both cases.
Plaintiffs’ attorneys argued that the law impermissibly seeks to limit access to content protected by the First Amendment, including news and educational materials.
“Fairness and the public interest support aid because it is always in the public interest to protect First Amendment rights and the rights of parents to control their children as they see fit, not as the government tells them,” attorneys for Students Engaged in Advancing Texas wrote.
Lawyers in Paxton’s office argued that the law protects children from “dangerous modern products.”
“With access to an app store and a mobile device (such as a tablet or smartphone), a child could potentially download any number of software applications, potentially consent to an invasion of the child’s privacy and the sale of the child’s data, and be exposed to any conceivable content without parental consent or even parental knowledge,” they wrote.
