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   "A broad censorship regime" - Big Tech and students hit Texas age verification   
   law with legal complaints   
      
   Date:   
   Tue, 21 Oct 2025 16:35:27 +0000   
      
   Description:   
   The Texas App Store Accountability Act is set to be enforced on January 1,   
   2026, requiring Big Tech to perform age checks on all users downloading apps   
   in app stores.   
      
   FULL STORY   
      
   A student journalist, a high school debater, a student advocacy organization,   
   and a consortium of Big Tech giants walk into a room. No, it isn't the   
   beginning of a joke  they are all trying to halt the Texas new age   
   verification law from taking effect.    
      
   Set to be enforced on January 1, 2026, the Texas App Store Accountability Act   
   will require official app stores to perform mandatory age checks on anyone in   
   the state before allowing them to download any mobile applications.    
      
   Teenagers would also be banned from downloading any app or making an in-app   
   purchase without parental consent. In turn, parents must verify their    
   identity to provide consent for every download or purchase.    
      
    According to the CCIA (Computer & Communications Industry Association),    
   these requirements violate the First Amendment "by restricting app stores    
   from offering lawful content, preventing users from seeing that content, and   
   compelling app developers to speak of their offerings in a way pleasing to    
   the state."    
      
   The Students Engaged in Advancing Texas (SEAT) agrees with Big Tech on this   
   and filed a similar lawsuit . "Students have just as much a right to access   
   information as adults, and this law denies them that access,"  said Cameron   
   Samuels, co-founder and Executive Director of SEAT.    
      
   The Texas legislation is one of the many age verification laws being enforced   
   across the US in the name of children's online safety. While mandatory age   
   checks have pushed internet users to turn to the best VPN apps to avoid   
   sharing their sensitive details, it isn't yet clear if using a VPN could be a   
   viable option for Texans.   
      
   How Texas age verification rules could affect citizens   
      
   The CCIA, which represents the likes of Apple, Google, and Amazon, has   
   described the proposed rules as a  "misguided attempt to protect minors" that   
   seeks to go a step further than today's parental control systems, since it   
   requires everyone (not only minors) to prove their age before being able to    
   do anything in the app stores.    
      
   Users can do so by uploading a valid form of government-issued identification   
   to the platform. Yet, building such a database of sensitive details raises   
   data privacy and security concerns, experts warn, as it can become a target   
   for hacking or abuse.    
      
   That's not everything, though. "The Texas App Store Accountability Act    
   imposes a broad censorship regime on the entire universe of mobile apps," the   
   CCIA warns in its lawsuit .    
      
   That's because the law goes far beyond social media apps or adult-only   
   websites, which are the target of most age verification laws in the US. It   
   will age-gate all sorts of applications, including educational, news, and   
   creative apps such as Wikipedia, Coursera, Spotify, and The New York Times,   
   potentially hindering minors' ability to learn, communicate, and express   
   themselves.    
      
   Yet, "The First Amendment does not permit the government to require teenagers   
   to get their parents permission before accessing information, except in   
   discrete categories like obscenity. The Constitution also forbids restricting   
   adults access to speech in the name of protecting children," said Ambika   
   Kumar, a lawyer for the students' organization SEAT.    
      
   "This law imposes a system of prior restraint on protected expression that is   
   presumptively unconstitutional," she added.   
      
   Can a VPN help?   
      
   As mandatory age verification spreads across the internet, people in the US   
   and abroad are using VPN apps to bypass these checks.    
      
   Whether they do so to protect their most sensitive personal data or they are   
   minors looking to evade control, it's hard to know for sure  most likely,    
   it's a mix of both.    
      
   What's important to know here is that a virtual private network (VPN) can   
   spoof a user's IP address to make them appear as if they are browsing the   
   internet from a completely different location in no time.    
      
   As we have seen during the brief US TikTok ban , a VPN may not be a quick   
   workaround when the restrictions are imposed on the App Store level. This   
   would depend on how the restrictions will eventually be implemented.    
      
   At that point, however, the question also remains if complaints will manage    
   to knock down Texas's new age verification requirements before they    
   officially take effect.   
      
   ======================================================================   
   Link to news story:   
   https://www.techradar.com/vpn/vpn-privacy-security/a-broad-censorship-regime-b   
   ig-tech-and-students-hit-texas-age-verification-law-with-legal-complaints   
      
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