Texas Set to Impose App Store Age Verification Rules

Texas is reportedly closer to instituting age verification standards for Apple and Google’s app stores.

As Reuters reported Tuesday (May 27), a bill requiring the two tech giants to verify users’ ages could become law in Texas this week, awaiting Governor Greg Abbott’s signature after passing both houses of the state legislature.

The legislation says that if users are under the age of 18, they must get parental permission to download apps or make in-app purchases. Apple and Google have opposed the bill, arguing it imposes blanket requirements to turn over age data to all apps, even uncontroversial ones.

The report notes that the debate around age restrictions has led to conflict between Meta, which owns Instagram and Facebook, and Apple and Google.

During a U.S. Senate hearing last year, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified that he believed parents should not “have to upload an ID or proof they are a parent in every single app that their children use. The easier place to do this is in the app stores themselves.”

According to Reuters, child safety groups have backed the bill after years of campaigning for app store age verification.

“The problem is that self-regulation in the digital marketplace has failed, where app stores have just prioritized the profit over safety and rights of children and families,” Casey Stefanski, executive director for the Digital Childhood Alliance, told Reuters.

Utah has passed similar legislation, while app store age verification bills have been introduced in other states, including Alabama, Alaska, Hawaii, Kentucky, New Mexico, South Carolina, South Dakota and West Virginia.

Anxiety and mental health issues among children have skyrocketed as a result of young people gaining access to content, misinformation, and disturbing presentations, Intellicheck CEO Bryan Lewis told PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster in an interview in January.

“You can name so many websites,” he told Webster, “whether it’s TikTok or a gun manufacturer, alcohol or pornography site … so many of them just say, ‘Are you 18 or over’ or ‘Are you 13 and over? Click this button.’ There’s no proof.”

Lewis argued that state and federal laws need to change and that the mantra should be “prove, prove, prove … trust but verify.”

Research by PYMNTS Intelligence has found that social media has become a key part of life for most consumers. This is especially true for Generation Z consumers, 92% of whom say they check social media multiple times each day, according to the report, “Generation Zillennial: How Social Media Drives Zillennials’ Purchases.”