WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday allowed Texas to enforce a law requiring app stores to verify users’ ages and obtain parental consent before minors can download apps or make in-app purchases, declining requests to temporarily block the measure.
Justice Samuel Alito denied separate emergency petitions challenging the Texas App Store Accountability Act in two brief orders, leaving the law in effect while legal challenges continue.
The lawsuits were filed by the Computer & Communications Industry Association and Students Engaged in Advancing Texas, which argue the law violates First Amendment protections by restricting access to constitutionally protected content. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is named as a defendant in both cases.
Last month, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals allowed the law to take effect by staying a federal district court ruling issued in December that found the measure unconstitutional.
Attorneys representing Students Engaged in Advancing Texas argued that the law unlawfully limits access to speech, including educational and news content, and interferes with parents’ ability to decide how to supervise their children’s online activity.
“Equity and the public interest support relief because protecting First Amendment rights — and parents’ rights to supervise their children as they see fit, not as the government tells them they should — is always in the public interest,” the group’s attorneys wrote in court filings.
Lawyers for Paxton defended the law, saying it gives parents greater oversight of children’s use of mobile applications and protects minors from privacy risks and inappropriate online content.
In court filings, the attorney general’s office argued that children with access to smartphones or tablets can download applications that collect personal information or expose them to harmful material without their parents’ knowledge or consent.
