Title Texas Parental Consent Law
An assortment of bills requiring parental consent for minors to access certain internet services have picked up pace across the country but few are as far-reaching as Texas’ recently passed Securing Children Online through Parental Empowerment Act. The bill, recently signed into law by Governor Greg Abbott, will require “digital service providers” to first obtain the consent of a parent or guardian before allowing a user under the age of 18 to open an account.
That requirement applies to social media firms, but the broad phrasing of “service providers” appears to apply that same parental consent requirement to a wide array of other online services that simply require users to create accounts. Tech companies opposing the legislation like Meta and Google have said it would force them to collect sensitive new data on minors to verify their ages. It would also give parents wide latitude to cut off the types of content teens see, which could harm LGBTQ users or other vulnerable users.
