Apple’s updated App Store rules go after ‘nudify’ AI apps

Key points

• Apple's updated App Store rules explicitly ban AI 'nudify' apps that create nonconsensual intimate images.
• Developers must proactively prevent and remove such content or risk removal from the App Store.
• The changes follow criticism over Grok deepfakes and a San Francisco city attorney's order to remove 13 nudify apps.

Apple has updated its App Store rules to more explicitly prohibit so-called 'nudify' apps that use AI to generate intimate images of people without their consent. The changes, announced Friday, come after Apple faced significant criticism when X users employed Grok earlier this year to create nonconsensual, sexualized deepfakes, including of minors.

Apple did not remove X or Grok from the App Store, though it told senators it threatened to pull Grok. At Apple's WWDC event in June, protesters called on Apple to 'remove Grok, X, and all nudify technology from the App Store.' In July, a San Francisco city attorney ordered Apple to remove 13 'nudify' apps, which Apple said it did.

New developer requirements

Under the updated rules, Apple says developers 'must proactively prevent and remove' nonconsensual, sexual images as part of its content moderation requirements for App Store apps. Developers who 'fail to implement adequate safeguards' or 'don't remedy violations after notice' may be removed from the App Store.

Apple also clarified a rule that bars 'bait-and-switch' apps, or apps that add or change features, including 'nudification,' after they have been approved.

must proactively prevent and remove

— Apple

Child exploitation and trafficking

Apple's rules now more clearly state that any apps that 'facilitate human trafficking or the exploitation of children' will be pulled from the App Store and 'blocked from alternative distribution.'