Judge blocks age verification on app downloads; what's next for the new Texas law

Judge blocks app store age verification law in Texas

A federal judge has blocked a new Texas law that was intended to protect minors. The App Store Accountability Act that was set to go into effect on Thursday would have required age verification or parental consent to download apps.

DALLAS - A federal judge has blocked a Texas law that was set to go into effect on Thursday. It would have required age verification or parental consent for the download of apps.

Texas Age Verification Law

FILE-In this photo Social media app on a phone. (Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images)

The backstory:

Senate Bill 2420, or the App Store Accountability Act, would have gone into effect in Texas in the new year.

The new law that was set to start on Thursday would have required anyone under the age of 18 to get parental consent to download an app or make in-app purchases.

App stores would have been required to verify the age of those over 18.

A group that represents several app developers and big tech companies, including Google, Apple and Amazon, sued to block the new law.

What's new:

U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman issued a preliminary injunction against the law, arguing it likely violates the First Amendment.

Judge Pitman said this case is not the same as the age verification law when it comes to adult websites. He compared it to a bookstore requiring parents to give permission before a minor buys a book.

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What they're saying:

Constitutional lawyer David Coale weighed in on the case.

"The threshold question here is, you know, it is in all these First Amendment cases, is this a restriction on speech or is it a restriction of something else?" he said. "And the court was troubled by the breadth of it, that to download a weather app you were gonna have to put it in your ID. He said that’s just too much. If you can tailor it some more, maybe you get back under the precedent the Supreme Court created about the adult speech, adult entertainment sites. But otherwise, it’s just gotta be narrower."

While supporters of the law think the U.S. Supreme Court will ultimately see it on the same grounds as the age verification law for adult websites, Coale said that's not how the lower court judge saw it.

"So it is true that the state had a similar age verification law for adult entertainment that was ultimately affirmed by the Supreme Court. Difference in scope. I mean, I think we can all agree that adult entertainment sites, the modern stuff, not the old magazines the old cases were about, can be pretty dangerous to kids. But here you've got something way broader. The opinion had examples of that," he said.

The other side:

State Rep. Jared Patterson from Frisco is the co-author on the House version of the law. 

"Federal judges often get it wrong, and this is one of those cases. I look forward to the legal process working its way through to a final conclusion," he said in a statement.

What's next:

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has appealed the ruling, but it will not go into effect while the litigation proceeds.

Coale doesn’t believe the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals will take up the case until several months from now.