WASHINGTON– The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday refused to block Texas from enforcing a state law that requires app stores to verify users’ ages and obtain parental consent for minors who want to download apps or make in-app purchases on mobile phones.

Judge Samuel Alito, in a pair of one-sentence orders, denied petitions by plaintiffs who claim that the Texas App Store Accountability Act violates users’ constitutional rights to free speech.

Last month, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled that the law can take effect. The panel stayed a district court’s ruling last December that the law is unconstitutional.

Plaintiffs suing to block the law include Computer & Communications Industry Association and Students Committed to the Advancement of Texas. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is a defendant in both cases.

The plaintiffs’ attorneys argued that the law impermissibly seeks to limit access to content protected by the First Amendment, including news and educational materials.

“Equity and public interest support relief because protecting First Amendment rights (and the rights of parents to supervise their children as they see fit, not how the government tells them they should) is always in the public interest,” Students Engaged in Advancing Texas attorneys wrote.

Lawyers in Paxton’s office argued that the law protects children from “dangerous modern products.”

“A child with access to an app store and a mobile device (such as a tablet or smartphone) can potentially download any number of software applications, potentially accepting invasions of the child’s privacy and the sale of their data and being exposed to any content imaginable without parental consent or even parental knowledge,” they wrote.