Apple tightens App Store rules against AI 'nudify' and bait-and-switch apps

Apple has updated its App Store review guidelines to more explicitly ban apps that create sexual images of real people without their consent, including with AI tools, the company announced on Friday (US time).

Under the revised guideline 1.2, content moderation requirements now explicitly cover non-consensual intimate imagery, including imagery generated using AI, as content apps “must proactively prevent and remove.” Developers who fail to put adequate safeguards in place, or do not fix violations after being notified, risk being removed from the App Store, Apple said.

A new guideline, 2.5.19, clarifies Apple’s ban on apps that misrepresent what they do during review and then change after approval, a tactic known as bait-and-switch. Apple said such apps would be removed from the App Store and from the Apple Developer Program.

Apple also updated Section 5 to state that apps facilitating human trafficking or child exploitation will be removed and blocked from alternative distribution.

Apple said that last year it prevented more than 150,000 apps with safety issues from reaching customers and terminated more than 193,000 developer accounts for fraud and abuse.

The Verge reported that the changes follow criticism of Apple after users of X used the Grok chatbot earlier this year to create sexualised deepfakes, and after a San Francisco city attorney ordered Apple in July to remove 13 “nudify” apps, which it said it did.