San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu has sent formal cease-and-desist letters to Apple and Google, demanding the removal of 13 AI-powered “nudify” applications from the App Store and Google Play. The apps, several marketed as ordinary face-swapping or photo-editing tools, allow users to generate non-consensual, sexually explicit synthetic images of real people without their knowledge or consent. The demand covers eight apps hosted on Apple’s platform and five on Google’s, and gives both companies 28 days to comply or face potential civil penalties.
A Legal Basis Built on California’s Deepfake Laws
The letters invoke two intersecting California statutes. One criminalises knowingly facilitating or recklessly aiding the creation of non-consensual intimate deepfakes. A second law, enacted in 2025, extends civil liability specifically to third-party platforms that continue supporting such content after being formally notified, a provision that frames app stores themselves as potentially culpable distributors rather than neutral hosts.
Chiu’s office contends both companies have known about the presence of these apps on their platforms for nearly a year, through prior reports flagging the issue directly to them, yet continued processing in-app payments linked to the apps throughout that period. Chiu told reporters both companies had likely earned millions of dollars in fees from apps that facilitate this kind of exploitation, and argued that beyond the financial dimension, the resulting content causes severe harm, damaging reputations, mental health and personal autonomy for the women and girls targeted, with some victims reportedly experiencing suicidal ideation as a result.
Independent Research That Preceded the Legal Action
The city’s action follows sustained documentation by the Tech Transparency Project, a nonprofit research group that published a report in January 2026 identifying dozens of nudify apps available across both app stores, followed by a further investigation in April 2026 reaching the same conclusion: the apps remained available, continued generating revenue, and neither platform had taken meaningful corrective action in the interim. That April report additionally alleged that some of these apps carried an “E for Everyone” content rating, a classification that would make them technically accessible to children on both platforms despite their actual function.
Both companies have taken some action following the cease-and-desist letters. A Google spokesperson confirmed all five apps identified in Chiu’s letter have since been suspended from Google Play, citing the platform’s existing policy against sexual content. Apple stated it has always strictly prohibited apps designed to generate or distribute pornographic content, confirmed it has removed three of the named apps and is terminating their developers’ program accounts, and said it remains in contact with the developers of the four other flagged apps regarding outstanding policy violations.
Part of a Broader Legal and Advertising Ecosystem Under Scrutiny
This is not Chiu’s first legal action against synthetic image platforms; his office previously filed a lawsuit against 16 websites offering similar AI-based tools for turning ordinary photographs of real women and girls into explicit imagery. Parallel reporting has also examined how mainstream platforms such as YouTube and X have functioned as advertising and discovery channels driving traffic to these apps, creating what researchers describe as a closed loop between major social platforms and the smaller tools they help promote, a supply chain problem that legal action against app stores alone does not fully address.
The California enforcement action also arrives against a backdrop of broader federal effort: the DEFIANCE Act, aimed at strengthening victims’ ability to pursue civil claims over non-consensual intimate imagery, has passed the US Senate, though its enforcement mechanisms remain comparatively narrow, with direct platform liability provisions notably excluded from the final text following industry lobbying. That gap is precisely what San Francisco’s municipal action is now attempting to fill at the local level, using existing California consumer-protection and deepfake statutes to compel platform accountability that federal legislation has so far stopped short of mandating. The FBI recorded $893 million in AI-facilitated fraud losses in 2025 alone, a figure officials say underscores the scale of harm now attributable to generative AI misuse across categories including, but not limited to, non-consensual imagery.
