Apple must continue to verify the age of users in Texas, one-sentence ruling says

apple Texas must resume age verification of iPhone users after the Supreme Court rejected a request to stay the law.

The iPhone maker strongly opposed the law Tim Cook goes up to lobbying personally State Governor Greg Abbott…

The story so far

Texas requires app stores ensure that all users are age-verified and obtain parental consent for minors before they can download, purchase or even continue to use existing applications. The law went into effect earlier this year and imposes requirements on both app store owners like Apple and Google and developers.

Any user creating a new Apple account in Texas must verify that they are 18 or older. In some cases, Apple will be able to do this automatic check.

In addition, developers will need it determine the age range of application users to ensure compliance. Apple provides tools to help them.

The Supreme Court refuses to suspend the proceedings

The trade body, whose members include both Apple and Google, had petitioned the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals to block the law while trying to declare it unconstitutional.

That was denied, and the Consumer and Communications Industry Association took the matter to the US Supreme Court. CNET reports that the court did not grant the petition with a one-sentence decision.

The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that Texas can, for now, continue to enforce an age-verification law that forces app stores to verify the age of minors and provide parental consent before downloading apps or making in-app purchases.

The decision reads in full:

The petition to vacate the stay submitted to Judge Alito and sent to the Court is denied.

Adoption of 9to5Mac

The battle is unlikely to end here, with Apple and others still trying to overturn the law. However, it’s clear which way the wind is blowing in all jurisdictions around the world, and we’ve argued before that Apple would now be well advised to accept the inevitable and make it a PR win rather than legal defeat later.

9-5Mac readers overwhelmingly agreed that they would trust Apple to perform age and identity verification on individual app developers and websites that do so. While there will inevitably be comments that “none” is the preferred option, it is very clear that this will not be an option.

The author of the photo Hessam Go about Open it