Update, 4:29 p.m. ET: Apple reached out to 9to5Mac with more information, which you can find below the original post.
San Francisco city attorney David Chiu has sent cease-and-desist letters to Apple and Google, demanding that they remove several “nudify” apps from their app stores. Here are the details.
As reported by Wired, Apple and Google are once again under fire over the availability of “nudify” or “undress” apps on the App Store and Play Store.
The 13 apps investigated by the City Attorney’s Office—eight on the App Store and five on the Play Store—broadly advertise themselves as “face-swapping” tools, with their ability to create sexual deepfakes available once people use them. The website of one app, which has more than 1 million downloads, displays more than a dozen different styles of AI images it will generate, including “bikini queen curvy,” “calm busty,” and “cinematic intimacy.” Many of the styles show sexualized images of women alongside their descriptions. The homepage of another of the targeted apps claims to produce “free and uncensored” videos.
Chiu’s letter reportedly notes that both Apple and Google have been “profiting from the harmful technology,” while in a statement to Wired, the city attorney said both companies “ have likely ‘made millions of dollars in fees’ from apps that offer nudification.”
“These companies have responsibility to ensure that apps on their platforms do not facilitate sexual abuse,” Chiu says. The city’s legal letters say California’s laws prohibit supporting services that create deepfake pornography. The apps use in-app payments, which the tech companies take a cut of, the letters says. “The fact that some of the world’s largest and most established technology companies are facilitating this has to stop.”
Wired noted that it didn’t include the names of the apps in its report to avoid directing more users toward them. It also said that while a Google spokesperson claimed the company takes action against apps reported for violating its policies, Apple did not comment before publication.
Today’s news comes nearly six months after the Tech Transparency Project (TTP) published a report revealing dozens of “nudify” apps on the App Store, followed by an April investigation that found Apple’s own search suggestions and ads had steered users to them.
At the time, the company also told 9to5Mac that “nudify” apps violate its App Review Guidelines, and that it proactively rejects and removes such apps, including those flagged through its user reporting tools such as https://reportaproblem.apple.com.
To read Wired’s full report, follow this link.
Update, 4:29 p.m. ET: In a statement to 9to5Mac, Apple said:
“The App Store was designed to be a safe and trusted place for users, and we have always strictly prohibited apps designed to generate, distribute, or consume pornography. ‘Nudification’ apps are against our App Review Guidelines and we have proactively rejected many of these apps and removed many others, including when users have flagged them via our reporting tools. 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 that need to address policy violations or risk being removed as well.”
The company also said that its App Review Guidelines prohibit “nudify” apps, as well as pornographic or overtly sexual content, and that this rule applies to all developers. Apple added that developers are responsible for, and must have a method to filter user-generated objectionable content, under risk of having their apps removed from the App Store.
Apple also said that it proactively rejects nudification apps, and that users can report offensive, illegal, abusive, scammy our fraudulent apps through https://reportaproblem.apple.com.
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
Check out 9to5Mac on YouTube for more Apple news:
Breaking news from Cupertino. We’ll give you t…
Lead the curve on tomorrow’s iOS and Mac app h…
Marcus Mendes is a Brazilian tech podcaster and journalist who has been closely following Apple since the mid-2000s.
He began covering Apple news in Brazilian media in 2012 and later broadened his focus to the wider tech industry, hosting a daily podcast for seven years.
