City Attorney Targets Tech Giants Over AI Apps That Strip Clothing in Photos

San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu has sent cease-and-desist letters to Apple and Google, demanding they remove 13 "face-swapping" apps from their app stores. According to BackBox.org, the letters accuse the tech giants of profiting from applications that allow users to create AI-generated nonconsensual nude images, known as deepfakes, which are overwhelmingly used to target women and girls.

BackBox.orgSan Francisco Demands Apple and Google Delete AI ‘Nudify’ Apps From App Stores

"aiding and abetting" the sale of explicit deepfake images

wired.comSan Francisco City Attorney Demands Apple and Google Remove AI 'Nudify' Apps From App Stores

The legal action marks a significant regulatory push against both the app developers and the platform holders who distribute these harmful tools, as reported by wired.com. Chiu's office argues that by continuing to host these apps, Apple and Google are effectively profiting from technology that enables sexual exploitation.

Superintelligence News reported that San Francisco's demand says the stores "helped profit from AI deepfakes and failed to stop abuse." The city attorney's letters specifically detail how these apps are marketed as tools for removing clothing from photos with a simple swap of a face, creating realistic but fake nude images without the subject's consent.

Superintelligence NewsSan Francisco Presses Apple and Google to Purge AI Nudify Apps From Their Stores

The cease-and-desist letters give the tech companies a deadline to respond, and failure to comply could lead to further legal action. According to BackBox.org, the demand focuses on 13 specific apps that have been linked to widespread abuse, particularly targeting women and girls who have had their images manipulated without permission.

This move by San Francisco represents one of the most direct efforts by a major city to hold platform holders accountable for the distribution of deepfake technology. As wired.com noted, the letters accuse Apple and Google of enabling a market that thrives on nonconsensual imagery, raising urgent questions about the responsibility of app store operators in the age of generative AI.