Apple and Google are on the ropes. The city of San Francisco has just sent them a clear warning: if they do not remove from their stores all apps that use man-made intelligence to create fake nudes of real people, they could face serious legal sanctions. And no, this is not an easy suggestion, it is an order with a deadline.
What San Francisco asked of the tech giants
City Attorney David Chiu sent formal letters to both Apple and Google demanding the Immediate removal of 13 applications known as “nudify”. These apps They take normal photos of real people and, using generative AI, digitally remove their clothesthey change their physical features or directly glue their faces to naked bodies without any type of consent. Eight of these applications were available in the App Retailer and five in Google Play, which shows that neither of the two platforms was saved from the problem.
Chiu did not mince words and directly accused both companies of being “aiding and encouraging” the sale of explicit sexual content generated with deepfakessomething that according to him completely violates state laws. The strongest thing about the matter is that the companies have barely 28 days to respond before civil penalties begin to fall. Such a short period makes it clear that the city is not ready to play games with this issue.
Why California law prohibits all this
California has pretty strict legislation when it comes to intelligently created non-consensual pornography. State regulations explicitly prohibit any activity that facilitates the creation of this type of self-discipline subject, and from 2025 victims can even civilly sue the platforms that allow this to happen. Basically, if a company benefits financially from these apps, even through commissions for in-app purchases, they could also be in trouble.
The interesting thing is that this is not the first time these laws have been put on the table. Already In January 2026, there was a similar scandal when a report from the Tech Transparency Mission revealed that there were more than 100 apps of this type distributed between both stores.which forced Apple to remove 28 applications and Google to suspend another 31. That is, this problem It has been heating up for months and now it finally reached a point where the authorities decided to act more forcefully.
Furthermore, California law does not distinguish between adults and minors, and in fact there are specific regulations such as AB 1831 that further toughen penalties when the victims are minors. This widens the scope and puts even more pressure on app stores to be strict about what they allow for publishing.
Apple and Google’s response to the controversy
An Apple spokesperson confirmed to TechCrunch that nudify-type apps were already banned under its internal policies.and that the company has already eliminated three of the indicated applications while moving forward in canceling the accounts of the responsible developers. For its part, Google also defended itself by saying that it had removed hundreds of “nudification” apps for violating its rules, including the five specifically mentioned in Chiu’s letter, and that it also limited searches for terms like “nudify” within Play Retailer.
The curious detail is that, although both companies claim to have policies that prohibit this type of content, the reality is that these apps continued to find a way to sneak into the official stores and generate income. This shows that policies alone are not enough if there is no strict and constant application behind them.
What’s coming now is wait if Apple and Google manage to meet the 28-day deadline or if the conflict escalates to larger instances. Meanwhile, this case becomes an important precedent to understand How far does the responsibility of the platforms go? when they distribute technology capable of generating harmful content on a large scale.
Keep reading:
• New X button prevents Grok’s AI from altering your photos but it’s not all good news
• Elon Musk restricts Grok to prevent it from generating images of users without clothes
• More than 100 discovered creating nudes with AI on Play Retailer and App Retailer: the dark side of deepfakes
