San Francisco Orders Apple, Google to Remove 13 Nudify Apps
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- San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu sent cease-and-desist letters to Apple and Google on Thursday ordering removal of 13 face-swapping "nudify" apps — 8 from the App Store and 5 from Google Play — and accusing the companies of "aiding and abetting" the sale of explicit deepfake images.
- The letters claim Apple and Google have likely "made millions of dollars in fees" from the apps' in-app purchases and demand both companies sever business relationships with the developers under California laws prohibiting deepfake pornography services.
- Google says it has already removed "hundreds" of nudifying apps for policy violations, including the five Android apps flagged by Chiu, and has restricted related search terms like "nudify" on its store; Apple declined to comment.
- The Tech Transparency Project uncovered around 100 nudifying apps across both platforms in January and April, collectively downloaded roughly 480 million times with an estimated $120 million in combined revenue, per reporting cited by WIRED.
- Researchers from Cornell and Georgetown identified 420 face-swapping apps on the two stores and found that 70% of the 155 apps they tested could produce nude face swaps with no safety guardrails, per a May preprint.
- Chiu warned that if Apple and Google don't "do the right thing," his office will consider "all legal options," framing this as the latest escalation after his office previously sued 16 deepfake websites.
Why it matters: This is a city-level legal escalation targeting Apple and Google specifically over nudify apps — and it lands alongside research showing the problem is massive (roughly 480 million downloads, an estimated $120 million in revenue) despite both companies' existing policies banning such content. If Chiu follows through on litigation, the app stores face concrete California legal exposure over their moderation failures, not just reputational damage.
