- Regulatory Demand: San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu has demanded that Apple and Google remove 13 nudification apps from app stores.
- Platform Response: Apple has removed three cited apps and started developer-account action, while Google suspended all five cited Play apps.
- Store Controls: The demand also targets payment ties and screening, with a 28-day response window and possible civil penalties.
- Screening Evidence: April searches and a May study found broad exposure, deceptive labels, and weak safeguards across face-swap apps.
San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu’s office says its July 16 notices demand the removal of 13 identified tools, ask both companies to contact the city within 28 days, and reserve further legal action for noncompliance. Such software can digitally strip clothing from a person’s photo. It can then create a nonconsensual nude image.
Apple has removed three cited apps and started terminating their developer accounts. It also contacted four other developers about policy violations. Google has suspended all five cited Play apps. San Francisco’s demand covers five Google Play and eight App Store apps.
A cease-and-desist letter is a legal demand, not a court ruling. San Francisco wants the stores to end payment support and developer relationships. It also wants better screening for sexual or intimate-looking images made without the depicted person’s consent.
The Demand Reaches Payments and Screening
Chiu’s office says the notices demand an end to support for nonconsensual intimate imagery, allege almost a year of payment processing after warnings, and identify one cited app with more than one million downloads plus more than a dozen sexualized artificial-intelligence image styles.
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California law may criminalize knowingly or recklessly aiding nonconsensual deepfake pornography. A 2025 California law may also let victims pursue civil claims when notified companies continue providing support.
Platform revenue sits at the center of Chiu’s accusation:
“Apple and Google are profiting off apps that exploit women and girls by generating nonconsensual intimate deepfakes.”
David Chiu, San Francisco City Attorney
Google’s five suspensions cover every Play app named in the demand, while Apple’s three removals do not complete the eight-app request. Four other developers remain under policy pressure.
The cited product’s generic face-swap label did not disclose its sexualized image capabilities. Store reviewers would need to test them directly.
Earlier Findings Exposed a Screening Gap
In April, searches for nudify and undress surfaced apps capable of digitally stripping clothing from images of women. Investigators also found 31 apps rated for minors.
Store search and recommendations kept helping users find the apps, although those April findings do not represent the stores’ current inventory. Removing named apps cannot by itself fix search and review weaknesses.
Despite Apple’s safe-and-trusted App Store claim, store recommendations and search features exposed users to prohibited tools.
A separate face-swap app study identified 420 apps and manually tested 155 eligible products. Seventy percent lacked technical safeguards against nude face swaps, and none carried a nudification label. Store reviewers cannot rely only on listing language when a general-purpose tool may generate prohibited imagery.
Katie Paul, director of the Tech Transparency Project watchdog group, saw the problem recur across two investigations:
“We didn’t think after the first report that we would see this as a problem again—and it was just as bad, if not worse, after the second report.”
Katie Paul, Director of the Tech Transparency Project (via Wired)
Google says its enhanced generative-AI review pipeline tests safeguards against nonconsensual intimate imagery and has reviewed thousands of apps, sometimes more than once. Recurrence after earlier removals makes prevention, rather than completed-review volume, the useful measure of that control.
What Apple and Google Must Address Next
Immediate removals address named products. San Francisco’s demand also reaches developer accounts, payment processing, store search, and repeat screening of deceptively labeled tools. Apple and Google control whether prohibited capabilities remain searchable. They also control whether those capabilities remain purchasable after an app disappears.
People whose ordinary photos can be repurposed without consent bear the direct risk. San Francisco’s 28-day contact request sets a deadline for the companies’ response, while possible civil penalties remain a threatened consequence rather than an imposed judgment.
Five cited App Store apps remain unresolved after Apple’s three removals. Apple’s response must address those apps. It must also address screening failures that could let similarly disguised face-swap tools reappear.
