WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday allowed Texas to move forward with enforcing a state law that requires app stores to confirm users’ ages and secure parental consent before children can download apps or make in-app purchases on smartphones and other mobile devices.
Justice Samuel Alito issued two one-sentence orders rejecting emergency requests from groups challenging the Texas App Store Accountability Act. Those groups argue the law violates constitutional free speech protections.
The decision follows a ruling last month by a three-judge panel from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which said the law could take effect. That panel had put on hold a lower court’s December ruling that had found the law unconstitutional.
Among those suing to stop the law are the Computer & Communications Industry Association and Students Engaged in Advancing Texas. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is named as a defendant in both lawsuits.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs contend the law improperly restricts access to content that is protected under the First Amendment, including news articles and educational material.
Attorneys for Students Engaged in Advancing Texas wrote: “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.”
On the other side, attorneys from Attorney General Paxton’s office defended the law as a way to shield children from what they called “dangerous modern products.”
“A child with access to an app store and a mobile device (such as a tablet or smartphone) can potentially download any number of software applications, potentially agreeing to invasions of the child’s privacy and sale of the child’s data and be exposed to any conceivable content without parental consent or even parental knowledge,” those attorneys wrote.
