Apple Accounts in Texas Now Require Age Verification at Signup
What You Need to Know
- Apple implementing mandatory age verification for new Texas accounts due to state law SB 2420.
- Federal judge blocked law as likely unconstitutional; Fifth Circuit stayed injunction while appeals continue.
- New Texas users must provide personally identifiable information to create accounts, contradicting Apple’s privacy-focused identity.
- App developers face up to $10,000 civil penalties per violation for non-compliance with parental consent requirements.
Apple is rolling out mandatory age verification for Texas users creating new Apple Accounts, driven not by its own policy choices but by a state law it actively lobbied against and lost.
The backstory makes the June 4 deadline feel less like a clean launch and more like a legal détente. A federal judge blocked SB 2420 in December, calling it likely unconstitutional and a First Amendment violation. The Fifth Circuit then stayed that injunction, reviving the law while appeals continue. Apple is building compliance infrastructure for a statute that courts have not yet decided is valid.
The privacy tension here is the part Apple would rather not advertise. The company spent years building its identity around minimizing data collection, and the Declared Age Range API reflects that instinct: it passes age categories rather than raw identity documents. But the law requires “commercially reasonable methods” to verify age at account creation, which means new users in Texas will have to hand over personally identifiable information just to download an app, including ones with no age-sensitive content at all.
What developers are responsible for
The compliance burden lands heavily on app makers, not just Apple:
- Adopt the Declared Age Range API for new account users in Texas
- Obtain parental consent before a minor downloads an app
- Re-obtain consent after any “significant change” to the app (developers define what qualifies)
- Support parental consent revocation at any time
- Civil penalties run up to $10,000 per violation
Google’s Play Store faces the same requirements, so this is not a competitive disadvantage for Apple specifically. But Apple’s existing accounts are exempt, which means the friction falls entirely on new users and newly installed apps going forward.
Tim Cook personally called Governor Greg Abbott asking for a veto. Abbott signed it anyway. That detail, more than any API announcement, explains the tone of Apple’s developer documentation on this one.
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