S.T.O.P. Argues Texas App Store Accountability Act Should Be Struck
(New York, NY, 7/7/26) - Last week, the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (S.T.O.P.), a privacy and civil rights group, filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, arguing that Texas’s App Store Accountability Act (“ASAA”) requires an overly broad collection of consumer data. The filing came in Computer & Communications Industry Association v. Paxton, supporting the plaintiff-appellee’s successful motion for a preliminary injunction and urging the court to consider the ways the ASAA negates many of the protections granted by existing laws. The ASAA’s requirements, supposedly put in place for the purpose of protecting children, ultimately expose all app store users to increased risk that their sensitive data will be misused.
SEE: S.T.O.P. Amicus Brief – Computer & Communications Industry Association v. Paxton
https://www.stopspying.org/ccia-v-paxton
“This law does the opposite of what it promises,” said Surveillance Technology Oversight Project Legal Director Darío Maestro. “In the name of protecting kids, Texas is forcing every app store user in the state to hand over sensitive personal data to developers, forever, with no way to opt out. You cannot protect children by building a surveillance dragnet that swallows everyone. The Fifth Circuit should see the ASAA for what it is and strike it down.”
SEE: Coders Stop - Third-Party ID Verification Hubs Are Becoming the Most Dangerous Single Points of Failure on the Internet, and Nobody Is Regulating Them,
https://medium.com/@coders.stop/third-party-id-verification-hubs-are-becoming-the-most-dangerous-single-points-of-failure-on-the-e79b07b58493
The ASAA requires an app store owner (“ASO”) to share with app developers the age data of any Texan who makes an app store account. If the user is a minor, the ASO must also share whether a parent has consented to their child’s download or purchase. This information is available to developers in perpetuity while users lack the ability to opt out or limit access to their data. Further, the ASAA requires both the ASO and the developer to separately verify users’ age and consent information but fails to instruct them on how to do so – leaving the door open for haphazard verification systems that do far more harm than good. By requiring collection and dissemination of users’ personal information, the ASAA violates existing federal privacy laws, and even Texas’s own, and heightens the risk that a user’s sensitive data will be misused.
SEE: Knight-Georgetown Institute - Age Assurance Online: A Technical Assessment of Current Systems and their Limitations https://kgi.georgetown.edu/research-and-commentary/age-assurance-online/
In 2024, S.T.O.P. released Age Of Surveillance: Conservative Age Surveillance Of LGBTQ+ Youth, a report detailing the harms of internet age-verification laws on LGBTQ+ children and teens. While protection of children is always a laudable objective, lawmakers have manipulated this narrative to censor LGBTQ+ resources online, dramatically reshaping access to internet content in their states. The concerns discussed in the report apply in equal force to age verification requirements within an app store.
SEE: S.T.O.P. Report - Age Of Surveillance: Conservative Age Surveillance Of LGBTQ+ Youth
https://www.stopspying.org/age-of-surveillance
The Surveillance Technology Oversight Project is a non-profit advocacy organization and legal services provider. S.T.O.P. litigates and advocates for privacy, fighting excessive local and state-level surveillance. Our work highlights the discriminatory impact of surveillance on Muslim Americans, immigrants, and communities of color.
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