Louisiana and Texas are the next states to watch in the effort to require app stores to verify user ages, which is pitting social media companies Meta, Snap and X against app store companies Apple and Google.
The Texas House on Thursday gave initial approval to a Senate bill requiring Apple and Google to age-gate their app stores and obtain parental permission before kids can download apps.
For the second year in a row, Louisiana Rep. Kim Carver (R) is sponsoring similar legislation, which was unanimously advanced out of committee this week. Apple helped quash last year’s proposal.
The Alabama Senate passed a version of the legislation, but it died in the House this week.
App store age verification bills were introduced in more than a dozen states and in Congress this year. Utah is the only one to enact one so far, passing a first-in-the-nation law in March.
Under the legislation, app stores would be required to ascertain a user’s age, link a minor’s account with their parent’s account, and obtain parental permission before a minor can download or purchase any app or make an in-app purchase.
Beyond the tech companies, the debate has also included parent activists, child safety advocates and state lawmakers, who admit to struggling with their own kids’ online habits.
“To say we just need better parenting, it’s laughable,” said Louisiana Rep. Kim Carver (R), who has three daughters. “Parents want to know their kids are safe and protected, but they don’t necessarily have the time, knowledge or tools to do it effectively.”
Requiring Apple and Google to age-gate their app stores emerged as an alternative to requiring social media sites to do it, which the tech industry has successfully challenged in court.
Melissa McKay, a Utah mom and youth online safety activist, worked closely with Sen. Todd Weiler (R) to pass Utah’s App Store Accountability Act. McKay and other advocates formed the Digital Childhood Alliance in February to push for passage of app store bills throughout the country.
“Apple and Google have built digital marketplaces that exploit children by design,” McKay told Pluribus News. “We formed the Digital Childhood Alliance because these companies have repeatedly refused to implement effective safeguards for minors.”
Leading social media companies Meta, Snap and X have embraced the concept.
“Parents want a one-stop-shop to oversee and approve the many apps their teens want to download, and Utah has led the way in centralizing it within a device’s app store,” the companies said in a joint statement after Gov. Spencer Cox (R) signed Utah’s bill.
Utah’s law covers all minors. Meta previously pitched requiring parental permission for those under 16.
The App Association, a global trade association whose sponsors include Apple and Google, is a key leader in the opposition fight. It argues that app store age verification is constitutionally fraught and will drive up costs for small developers that do not pose a risk to kids.
“We take it really seriously because it’s threatening all of our members that have nothing to do with social media,” said Morgan Reed, president of The App Association.
Reed said a better approach would be a voluntary agreement between the app stores and major social media sites.
The App Association launched ad campaigns in Alabama, Louisiana and Texas to scuttle the bills. One of the ads alleges “major porn sites” are behind app store age verification because they want to “avoid responsibility and liability for keeping kids off their platforms.”
Since 2022, nearly half the states have passed laws requiring adult web sites to verify users’ ages. The Free Speech Coalition, which represents the U.S. adult entertainment industry, has challenged several of those laws in court while endorsing age verification at the device level.
A spokesperson said the coalition is not involved in efforts to pass app store age verification bills, noting that adult content is “largely banned” from app stores.
“There’s little reason for porn sites to be involved,” Mike Stabile, Free Speech Coalition’s director of public policy, wrote in an email. “We do support device-based age-verification, which is more effective and less dangerous than platform-based solutions.”
Dawn Hawkins, senior adviser at the National Center for Sexual Exploitation, said The App Association’s ads are an attempt “to confuse legislators and the media by lumping two completely different frameworks together.”
“The App Store Accountability Act is supported by the fiercest opponents of the porn industry,” she said in a statement.
Carver, the Louisiana lawmaker, denounced the ads as “outrageous” and said no one who knows him would believe he’d carry “a measure on behalf of the porn industry.”
The App Association responded that it does not think Carver is “carrying water for the adult entertainment industry, but whether he wants it to or not his bill would be a big win for that industry.”
The association also said the difference between verifying ages at the app store level or device level is a “distinction without a difference for developers.”
Apple and Google tout existing tools they offer that allow parents to create family accounts and manage their kids’ online activities.
Apple referred Pluribus News to a February white paper that said the company will give parents the option to send app developers information about their kids’ age range. The company compared the idea of requiring age-gating at the app store level to checking IDs for everyone entering a mall.
“[T]he right place to address the dangers of age-restricted content online is the limited set of websites and apps that host that kind of content,” the white paper said.
Apple also said requiring users to prove their age to access the app store would put their privacy at risk. Advocates counter that the companies already have age information from users.
In March, after Utah’s law passed, Google proposed an alternative legislative framework that it said would protect privacy and split responsibilities between the app stores and app developers.
Under the proposal, parents would grant permission for an app store to share their child’s age range with apps, and only for apps that requested that information because their product might be risky for kids.
“Google is committed to protecting kids and teens online, and we’ve had very productive conversations with state lawmakers on our framework,” Kareem Ghanem, senior director for government affairs and public policy at Google, said in a statement.
A bill that incorporates Google’s framework has been introduced in Ohio.