San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu sent cease-and-desist letters to Apple and Google on Thursday demanding they pull 13 AI face-swap apps that generate nonconsensual nude images, and stop taking a cut of the in-app payments that fund them. Eight of the apps sit on the Apple App Store and five on the Google Play Store. Chiu's office estimates the two companies have collectively made millions of dollars in fees from the category.
The letters invoke California law barring services that create deepfake pornography, and tell Apple and Google to "sever" their business relationships with the developers. Chiu's office previously sued 16 popular deepfake websites; this is the first time it has gone directly at the mobile distribution layer.
“Generating non-consensual intimate images is illegal, harmful, and completely unacceptable.”— David Chiu, San Francisco City Attorney
One of the flagged apps has more than 1 million downloads and markets AI image styles including "bikini queen curvy" and "cinematic intimacy," according to the letters. Another advertises "free and uncensored" video generation. The apps present publicly as face-swap tools, then expose the sexual generation features once installed.
Key facts
- 01San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu sent cease-and-desist letters to Apple and Google on July 17, 2026, demanding removal of 13 face-swap apps.
- 02The targeted apps include 8 on the Apple App Store and 5 on the Google Play Store; one has more than 1 million downloads.
- 03Chiu's office previously took legal action against 16 deepfake websites and estimates Apple and Google have made millions in fees from nudify apps.
- 04Tech Transparency Project found roughly 100 nudify apps across both stores, collectively downloaded 480 million times with an estimated $120 million in combined revenue.
- 05Cornell and Georgetown researchers tested 155 of 420 face-swap apps and found 70% could generate nude face swaps without safety measures.
Google said it has already removed the five Android apps Chiu flagged, along with hundreds of others in the category, and has restricted search terms including "nudify" inside the Play Store. Apple did not comment before publication. Both companies' developer policies formally ban pornography, abuse, and harassment.
The scale problem is not new to either store. The Tech Transparency Project identified roughly 100 nudify apps across the App Store and Play Store in reports published in January 2026 and April 2026. Those apps were collectively downloaded around 480 million times and generated an estimated $120 million in combined revenue before takedowns.
Katie Paul, who directs the Tech Transparency Project, said her group expected the second sweep to find a smaller problem than the first. It did not.
“We didn't think after the first report that we would see this as a problem again—and it was just as bad, if not worse, after the second report.”— Katie Paul, Director of Tech Transparency Project
A separate preprint from Cornell University and Georgetown University researchers in May 2026 catalogued 420 apps offering general face-swapping capabilities across the two stores. The researchers tested 155 of them and found that in 70% of cases the apps could be used to generate nude face swaps, with no safety measures blocking the workflow. The paper labeled the category "dual-use" — apps that pass content moderation because they present as benign but retain the capability to produce harmful output on demand.
The distribution problem sits alongside a broader deepfake surge. xAI's Grok was used to generate millions of sexualized images in January 2026 after its image tools shipped with looser guardrails than competing systems, a story we covered at the time. Reporting by Wired and Indicator Media has documented deepfake sexual abuse incidents involving minors at at least 90 schools over the last five years.
Chiu framed the harm in blunt terms, saying the images are used to bully, humiliate, and threaten women and girls, and that some victims have become suicidal. He said his hope is that Apple and Google remove the apps and tighten screening so the category cannot re-enter the stores, but that his office will consider "all of our legal options" if they do not.
The action puts pressure on a chokepoint that regulators have mostly avoided until now. Lawmakers in the US and EU have focused on the websites and model providers that generate the images; the app stores have been treated as neutral distribution. Chiu's letters test whether that distinction holds when the storefront takes a 15% to 30% cut of the transactions and controls the search terms that surface the apps.
For Apple and Google, the immediate cost of pulling 13 apps is trivial. The harder question is enforcement architecture: the Cornell-Georgetown data suggests hundreds more apps with the same capability are already in the stores under face-swap branding, and Tech Transparency Project's back-to-back reports show that manual takedowns do not stop the category from repopulating. If Chiu escalates to litigation, the stores will have to defend a moderation system that researchers have now shown fails 70% of the time on the specific harm the letters target — a difficult posture in front of a California court, and a template other city and state attorneys will notice.
Working on something we should cover, or seeing a story we missed? Send leads, documents, or feedback to hello@aichatdaily.com. For sensitive tips, see our secure tips page for Signal and PGP options.
Spotted an error? Email hello@aichatdaily.com with the URL and the issue, or read our full corrections policy.
