San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu has sent formal letters to Apple and Google demanding they remove "nudify" apps — tools that use AI to generate non-consensual intimate images — from their platforms.
Chiu's office told both companies they have long known they are hosting apps in violation of California law. The letters named no specific apps and set no public compliance deadline. The city attorney's office has not publicly disclosed which statute the letters invoke, an omission that makes it difficult to independently gauge the legal weight behind the demand.
This matters because app stores have long resisted removing this category of app, and federal regulators have moved slowly on AI-generated non-consensual imagery. A formal letter from a city attorney carries political weight but no direct enforcement mechanism; Apple and Google have removed entire app categories under similar reputational pressure before.
Whether either company acts may depend less on Chiu's letter than on which statute, if any, backs it up — and that detail has not been made public.