Tech Industry and Texas Students Ask Supreme Court to Block Texas App Store Age-Verification Law as Alito Sets June 22 Deadline

Overview

The fight over Texas’s law requiring app marketplaces to verify users’ ages has reached the U.S. Supreme Court. According to SCOTUSblog, the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA) and the student advocacy group Students Engaged in Advancing Texas (SEAT) have asked the justices to restore orders by U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman that bar Texas from enforcing Senate Bill 2420, after the Fifth Circuit put those orders on hold on June 4. Justice Samuel Alito, who handles emergency applications from the Fifth Circuit, instructed Texas to respond by 4 p.m. EDT on Monday, June 22, the same outlet reported.

The move escalates a dispute The Machine Herald previously reported when the Fifth Circuit stayed the First Amendment injunction and allowed the law to take effect.

What We Know

SB 2420, the App Store Accountability Act, requires app marketplace operators to verify all users’ ages and seek parental permission before minors can download apps or make in-app purchases, according to The Texas Tribune. The same outlet reported that Google and Apple are the primary app marketplace operators subject to the law, and that it requires app developers to classify apps into four age categories: under 13, ages 13-15, ages 16-17, or 18 and older. The law was supposed to activate on January 1, The Texas Tribune reported.

CCIA and SEAT filed separate lawsuits in October challenging the measure, according to The Texas Tribune. U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman issued a temporary injunction in December, the same outlet reported, and the Fifth Circuit blocked that injunction on May 28, 2026, allowing the law to proceed temporarily. According to Biometric Update, a federal district court judge ruled in December 2025 that SB 2420 likely violates the First Amendment and blocked it, before the Fifth Circuit lifted the injunction.

The two emergency applications are docketed as Students Engaged in Advancing Texas v. Paxton, No. 25A1389, and Computer & Communications Industry Association v. Paxton, No. 25A1390, SCOTUSblog reported.

The Argument

In its filing, CCIA seeks an emergency ruling “to block Texas from enforcing its age verification requirements on all app stores and app store users until a Constitutional challenge to Texas’ SB2420 is fully heard,” according to CCIA. The trade group’s brief contends the law “violates the First Amendment because it imposes government controls over protected speech and access to lawful information through age verification and parental consent requirements,” the same release stated, describing SB 2420 as imposing “an unconstitutional, sweeping age-verification, parental consent, and compelled speech regime on both app stores and app developers.”

CCIA argued to the justices that the Fifth Circuit’s ruling “has upset the status quo by allowing the Act to be enforced for the first time” and exposes app stores to “enormous and unrecoverable compliance costs,” according to SCOTUSblog.

Matt Schruers, CCIA’s President and CEO, said: “Texas’s law would force the public to document age and identity to access lawful information. Users should not have to provide ID to download a Bible app or the New York Times, but Texas requires just that,” according to CCIA. In separate comments reported by Biometric Update, Schruers said “Parents – not governments – should retain the ability to make decisions about their children’s use of technology.”

Texas has defended the law as a child-protection measure. State Attorney General Ken Paxton said “Texas has not only the right, but the duty, to protect children from the harms of our modern digital space,” according to 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.

What We Don’t Know

It is not yet known how Justice Alito or the full Court will rule on the emergency applications, or whether the Court will act before or after Texas files its June 22 response. The applications seek only to pause enforcement pending appeal and do not resolve the underlying First Amendment challenge, which continues at the Fifth Circuit. The timing of a final appellate decision on the merits remains unclear.