San Francisco city attorney David Chiu ordered Apple and Google to remove 13 face-swapping apps from their stores, tools that fabricate nude images from ordinary photos without the subject’s consent, according to WIRED. Chiu’s office says both companies likely earned millions in fees through the in-app payments they take a cut of, and that state law makes it illegal to provide support to services designed to generate sexual deepfakes. Watchdog and academic research has repeatedly surfaced nudify and face-swap apps across both stores, with the Tech Transparency Project estimating roughly 100 such apps drew around 480M downloads and $120M in revenue, while Google says it removed hundreds of violating apps and Apple declined to comment.
