The city of San Francisco has ordered Apple and Google to remove dozens of “nude” apps — software programs that can digitally alter images to unmask the people in them — from their app stores.
California law criminalizes any activity who “knowingly facilitates” or “recklessly aids or abets” the creation of non-consensual fake pornography. In 2025, California too passed a law which allows victims to bring civil actions against third-party intermediaries of such material. The city says that despite these known regulations, both tech companies have continued to host and make money from such programs.
“Apple and Google are profiting from apps that exploit women and girls by creating non-consensual intimate deep fakes,” San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu said in a statement emailed to TechCrunch. “While the companies have cut ties with some problematic apps, Apple and Google have a responsibility to be proactive and vigilant in preventing sexual abuse.”
Letters sent to Google and Apple from Chiu’s office, seen by TechCrunch, note that the companies “were put on notice” for their role in “processing payments for illegal purchases for nearly a year,” but continued to do so nonetheless.
According to the letters, both companies have been repeatedly warned about hosting these apps. In January and again in April, the Tech Transparency Project issued reports and sent letters to both companies noting that there were “dozens of apps” in their app stores that were “selling deepfake NCII [non-consensual intimate images] in return for payments’ from which the companies process.
TTP report from April said that Google and Apple deliberately “led” users to such apps and called both companies “key participants in the proliferation of AI tools that can turn real people into sexual images.”
Additional, Chiu told Wired that both companies had likely earned “millions of dollars in fees” from apps that offered such services.
The letters from Chiu’s office warn that Apple and Google could face civil penalties for violating the law and ask that they contact the city within 28 days.
When contacted for comment by TechCrunch, an Apple spokesperson said the nude apps were banned from appearing on its App Store, further noting: “We have removed three of the apps in question and are in the process of terminating their developer accounts from our program. We are in contact with four others who have policy violations or are at risk of removal as well.”
A Google spokesperson claimed that all five Play apps mentioned in Chiu’s letter had been suspended from Google Play. “When violations are reported to us, we investigate and take swift action, which in the case of these apps included suspending hundreds of infringing apps and restricting relevant search terms like ‘nudify’ in our store,” the spokesperson added.
Deepfake porn has was largely a problem for female celebrities, although nudity apps allow anyone with a publicly available photo to be targeted.
Update July 17: This article has been updated to include statements from Google and Apple.
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