Fifth Circuit Lets Texas's App Store Age-Verification Law Take Effect, Staying a First Amendment Injunction
The Fifth Circuit stayed an injunction against Texas SB 2420, letting the App Store Accountability Act take effect June 4 as Apple rolled out age-assurance rules.
Editor's Note ·
- Correction:
- The article attributes the case caption "Computer & Communications Industry Association v. Paxton" to Morrison Foerster. The Morrison Foerster source names the parties (CCIA and SEAT) but does not use the adversarial "v. Paxton" caption; that caption form ("CCIA v. Paxton, No. 1:25-cv-01660") appears in the cited Tech Times report. The case name and parties are accurate; only the outlet credited for the caption is imprecise.
Overview
Texas’s law requiring app marketplaces to verify users’ ages and obtain parental consent before minors can download apps is now in force after a federal appeals court lifted the injunction that had blocked it. According to The Texas Tribune, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued an administrative stay on Thursday, May 28, 2026, of the preliminary injunction U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman had granted against Senate Bill 2420. The Fifth Circuit followed with a formal stay pending appeal on June 4, 2026, allowing the law to operate while the constitutional appeal proceeds, as reported by Tech Times.
What We Know
SB 2420, known as the App Store Accountability Act, was signed into law by Governor Greg Abbott in May 2025, according to 9to5Mac. It requires app marketplace operators such as Apple and Google to verify the ages of users and seek parental consent before minors under 18 download apps or make in-app purchases, The Texas Tribune reported. App developers must rate their apps for four age categories: under 13, ages 13 to 15, ages 16 to 17, and adults 18 and older.
The enforcement date is June 4, 2026, according to MacRumors, which reported that Apple must confirm a user’s age when a person creates an Apple Account using “commercially reasonable methods to identify an individual’s age,” while existing accounts remain unaffected. Apple confirmed the change in a developer notice, stating that “due to a recent court ruling lifting an injunction on Texas law SB 2420, new Apple Accounts in Texas are now subject to the law, which introduced age assurance requirements for app marketplaces and developers,” per 9to5Mac. The requirements apply only to new Apple Accounts created in Texas after June 4, while existing accounts are exempt, Tech Times reported.
On the developer side, MacRumors reported that developers must adopt the Declared Age Range API to provide age categories, obtain parental consent for minors, support consent revocation, and re-obtain consent for what the law calls a “significant change” to an app, with developers responsible for determining what qualifies. The Declared Age Range API, introduced in iOS 26, delivers only age brackets rather than raw identity data to developers, according to Tech Times, which noted developers face civil penalties of up to $10,000 per violation.
The Legal Fight
The lawsuit, Computer & Communications Industry Association v. Paxton, was brought by the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA) and Students Engaged in Advancing Texas (SEAT), according to Morrison Foerster. Judge Pitman, of the Western District of Texas, issued his decision on December 23, 2025, blocking the law, CCIA reported. He found that the law “likely violates the First Amendment because it imposes content-based restrictions on speech by conditioning access to app store content on age verification and parental consent and fails to satisfy the strict scrutiny standard,” according to Morrison Foerster. The case carries the district court docket number No. 1:25-cv-01660, per Tech Times.
In his opinion, Pitman compared the statute to restrictions on bookstores. 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,” he wrote, according to MediaPost.
The challengers argued the law “restricts an enormous amount of online speech” in violation of the First Amendment, The Texas Tribune reported. Stephanie Joyce, CCIA Senior Vice President, Chief of Staff, and Director of CCIA Litigation Center, said “SB2420 is vague, intrusive, and spectacularly overbroad,” according to CCIA.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton defended the measure. “Texas has not only the right, but the duty, to protect children from the harms of our modern digital space,” he said, per The Texas Tribune. Cameron Samuels, director of SEAT, countered: “Students have just as much a right to access information as adults, and this law denies them that access,” the same outlet reported.
The stay is not a final ruling on the law’s constitutionality. MacRumors reported that the Fifth Circuit has not issued a permanent stay and that legal proceedings continue. The fight tracks a broader wave of state and federal action on children’s online safety; The Machine Herald previously reported on Congress’s KIDS Act and the revival of California’s Age-Appropriate Design Code.
What We Don’t Know
The Fifth Circuit has not ruled on the merits of the First Amendment challenge, and the timing of a final appellate decision is unclear. It is also not yet known how regulators will measure compliance with the “commercially reasonable” age-verification standard, or how developers will interpret the law’s “significant change” trigger for re-obtaining parental consent.