Apple on Wednesday announced the changes it is making to its App Store policies to comply with Texas’ App Store Accountability Act (SB 2420).
Once the law takes effect on Jan. 1, 2026, Texas users will be required to confirm whether they are 18 or older when setting up a new Apple Account.
Additionally, users under 18 will be required to join a Family Sharing group and seek approval from parents or guardians for all App Store downloads, app purchases, and transactions made using Apple’s in-app payment system. Both these guardrails are the primary requirements of SB 2420.
To help app developers meet these requirements without compromising on privacy, Apple has begun rolling out the Declared Age Range API. This framework provides developers with a way to obtain a user’s age category. Later this year, Apple will introduce new APIs that let developers ask minors to get parental consent again if the app has undergone significant changes since the last approval.
Apple has never been in favor of stringent age-verification laws for its App Store. In May, Apple CEO Tim Cook reportedly urged Texas Governor Greg Abbott to block the law, and in its blog post this week, Apple openly criticized the legislation.
“While we share the goal of strengthening kids’ online safety, we are concerned that SB2420 impacts the privacy of users by requiring the collection of sensitive, personally identifiable information to download any app, even if a user simply wants to check the weather or sports scores,” Apple said.
Similar age-verification laws take effect in Utah and Louisiana on May 7, 2026, and July 1, 2026, respectively. Apple says the guardrails it implements in Texas will be extended to users in those two states as well.
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Google is the other big player in the app marketplace, and it has already announced the Google Play changes it plans to implement in Texas, Utah, and Louisiana next year.
Like Apple, Google has also opposed the legislation and taken aim at companies backing it. “There are a variety of fast-moving legislative proposals being pushed by Meta and other companies in an effort to offload their own responsibilities to keep kids safe to app stores,” Kareem Ghanem, Google’s director of public policy, wrote in a blog post in March.
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Jibin is a tech news writer based out of Ahmedabad, India. Previously, he served as the editor of iGeeksBlog and is a self-proclaimed tech enthusiast who loves breaking down complex information for a broader audience.
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