Apple Updates App Store Rules to Ban AI Nudify Apps

Apple has updated its App Store Review Guidelines to explicitly require developers to proactively filter out AI-generated nonconsensual intimate imagery, in a move aimed at apps that use AI tools to “nudify” people or turn ordinary images into sexually explicit content, Engadget reported.

Under the updated rules, developers whose apps host user-generated content must filter nonconsensual intimate imagery, including AI-generated material, and give users a way to report offensive content and block abusive accounts. They must also prevent users from uploading such images in the first place and remove any that slip through their filters. Apps that fail to put in place adequate safeguards, or that fail to fix violations after being notified, risk being removed from the store, according to Engadget.

Apple also clarified its rules on bait-and-switch tactics: if the company finds an app misrepresented its purpose during review and actually has “nudification” capabilities, it will remove the app from the store and eject its creator from the Apple Developer Program.

A new guideline, 2.5.19, forbids hidden, dormant or undocumented features and specifically calls out code obfuscation as a tactic that can get an app removed and a developer account terminated, Particle reported. Apple also strengthened Section 5 of the guidelines so that apps facilitating human trafficking or child exploitation are removed from the App Store and blocked from alternative distribution.

The changes formalise earlier enforcement, including investigations that found dozens of “nudify” apps, removal orders in San Francisco, hidden gambling behaviour in some apps, and warnings to xAI over Grok, per Particle.