San Francisco Orders Apple and Google to Pull AI 'Nudify' Apps

Key points

• San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu sent legal notices to Apple and Google on Thursday demanding the removal of 13 specific apps from their stores.
• The targeted apps include 8 on Apple's App Store and 5 on Google's Play Store, all broadly marketed as "face-swapping" tools.
• Cornell and Georgetown University researchers found in May 2025 that 70 percent of face-swap apps they tested could produce nude deepfakes with no safety checks.
• Apps flagged by the Tech Transparency Project in early 2025 had been downloaded roughly 480 million times and earned an estimated $120 million combined.
• Google confirmed it removed the five Android apps named in the letter; Apple had not commented at time of publication.

Imagine uploading a photo of someone you know and, in seconds, getting back a fake naked image of them. That is what these apps do. No technical skill needed. Just a picture and a couple of taps.

On Thursday, San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu sent cease-and-desist letters, formal legal demands to stop specific behaviour, to Apple and Google. He wants both companies to immediately pull 13 apps from their stores. The apps advertise themselves as face-swapping tools but, once opened, let users create AI-generated nonconsensual intimate images, which are fake sexual pictures of real people made without their knowledge or agreement.

Chiu's office says Apple and Google have likely "made millions of dollars in fees" from these apps, because both companies take a cut of in-app purchases. California law prohibits supporting services that create deepfake pornography, and the letters say the companies are "aiding and abetting" that harm.

"These images are used to bully, humiliate, and threaten women and girls," Chiu told Wired AI, which first reported the story. "There have been victims who've been suicidal."

Google spokesperson Dan Jackson confirmed the company deleted the five Android apps named in the letter, plus "hundreds" of others like them, and has restricted search terms such as "nudify" inside its store. Apple did not respond before publication.

Why haven't the stores caught these apps already?

Both Apple and Google have written policies banning pornography and harassment, but the apps consistently slip through by disguising themselves as innocent editing tools. A May 2025 research paper from Cornell University and Georgetown University tested 155 face-swap apps and found that 70 percent of them could produce nude deepfakes with no safety features to stop it. The researchers called these "dual-use" apps, meaning software that looks harmless on the surface but can cause serious harm underneath.

The Tech Transparency Project, an independent watchdog group, reported finding around 100 such apps across both stores in January and April 2025. Director Katie Paul put it plainly: "Apple and Google make a lot of promises about how trusted and safe their app stores are. That is just not what is playing out in reality."

Previous reporting uncovered deepfake sexual images of minors created in at least 90 schools.

Chiu says his office will pursue further legal action if Apple and Google do not act. "If they don't do the right thing, we will have to consider all of our legal options," he said.