Apple prepares for Texas age-verification law amid privacy concerns

Apple is preparing an update to the App Store to comply with a new Texas age verification law, but says it might lead entities working across other parts of the country and internationally to start collecting sensitive information about minors en masse.

The company has said it will comply with the new rules, but it is calling on regulators and developers to weigh the privacy costs of making everyone prove their age before being able to download even the simplest apps.

What the Texas age verification law requires of app stores

Texas SB 2420 makes app stores verify whether the user is an adult before allowing a download. If the user is a child, those with parental responsibility must take adequate measures to control the child’s payment account and grant permissions to download from the App Store, make purchases and more. In practice, however, that pushes platforms to create strong age gates, link minors with family accounts and bring parental approval flows to the tops of a variety of app experiences.

Apple’s intention is to apply these controls via its existing Family Sharing and in‑app purchase infrastructure. The company said minors in Texas will have to join a Family Sharing group so parents can approve or deny downloads and set spending limits. For developers, that means getting apps ready for more parental interstitials and making sure content ratings and policies are accurate and current.

Apple’s privacy warning about Texas age checks

In guidance to developers, Apple warned that the Texas model could normalize collecting personally identifiable information for everyday access to apps. The problem isn’t age verification in itself but rather how the service checks it: If regulatory compliance is forcing services to perform ID checks or maintain centralized databases of birthdates, that helps expand sensitive data footprints and reduces user anonymity.

Similar warnings have been sounded by privacy advocates. The Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Center for Democracy & Technology have vociferously opposed such broad age verification schemes, arguing they can send users to intrusive ID collection, are a recipe for tracking across services and new breach targets. The Federal Trade Commission regularly lists identity theft as a top consumer complaint, and the emergence of giant stores of verifiable information about individuals makes such data theft easier to perpetrate.

There is, as well, a civil liberties aspect. Forcing people to verify themselves can eat away at the promise of anonymous access to innocuous content — imagine weather apps or public health information — if users have to give up more than they would like. That friction could bite especially hard into the pockets of vulnerable groups and low‑wage earners who tend to have restricted access to documentation, patterns that previous analyses from digital rights groups have underscored.

How Apple plans to comply with the new Texas law

Apple is leaning on “privacy‑preserving” design. Its Declared Age Range API allows apps to receive an age band from the user in order to determine whether additional precautions are necessary, as opposed to a specific birthdate which would expose more granular personal data. Apple says it will revise the API so developers can treat new accounts from Texas users in accordance with the law’s mandates.

New developer tools will also alert the user to request parental consent if a product changes in any meaningful way — for example, by including features that alter an app’s rating or where user‑generated content is available. Crucially, parents will have the ability to withdraw their consent at a later time, allowing families to retain control as apps change. This reflects existing best‑practice guidance from regulators such as the UK Information Commissioner’s Office, which advises age‑appropriate design and data minimization with revocable controls.

The approach also lessens the burden on smaller development teams that might have built their own verification stack, something that costs a lot and can be risky. Rather than request IDs and birthdates, developers have other technologies like platform signals, parental permission prompts and age bands to help them make access decisions within the app experience.

A patchwork of state rules complicates app compliance

Texas is not alone. Apple said that developers should expect similar rules to become operational in other states, including Utah and Louisiana. A blanket of overlapping laws means app developers could be forced to employ state-based logic, multi-leveled compliance testing and continuous legal review as requirements change. Compliance can be cumbersome: One of the social platforms, Bluesky, had earlier blocked access in Mississippi while considering how to comply with a different state law there.

Courts are also grappling with how far youth surveillance mandates can go. Similarly, legal challenges to broad online age codes in other jurisdictions show how quickly the regulatory ground can shift. The absence of a clearly defined federal standard means platforms and other businesses will be navigating moving goalposts, with the genuine risk that they may over‑collect data just to stay on the right side of varying state laws.

Balancing child safety with data minimization principles

The policy intent is clear: to give parents greater control and curb young people’s exposure to harmful material and risky communication. Studies from groups like Common Sense Media and the Pew Research Center have shown that the vast majority of teenagers have access to smartphones, and spend a not insignificant amount of time in social media and gaming apps. That grim statistic is powering calls for tougher guardrails.

But the implementation matters. NIST and other benchmarks stress using least data necessary (minimization) and on‑device checking where feasible. These principles are aligned with Apple’s focus on age ranges and family controls. Systems that want to scan documents or check databases might technically meet the letter of the law but create long‑term privacy liabilities that will outlive the apps themselves.

What developers can do now to prepare for Texas rules

• Review app content ratings and make sure they describe the current experience.
• Implement the Declared Age Range API and set up flows for parental consent and revocation.
• Limit the personal data you collect for age verification — use platform signals and age bands, rather than IDs.
• Keep families well‑informed about what drives parental approval and how data is managed.
• Watch developments at the state level: If history is any guide, policy divergence will increase, not diminish.

The larger message: age verification is increasingly becoming a basic condition for app distribution in the United States. The Apple compliance plan becomes a template that promotes privacy by design. Whether states will adhere to that model — or demand even stricter identity checks — the amount of personal data everyday app downloads will need remains to be seen.