Apple removes 19 apps from its App Store after an investigation finds they concealed tools for creating sexually abusive deepfake images and videos. The reports say the apps were designed to appear normal—such as offering pet portraits, language lessons, and fitness coaching—while using hidden functionality to generate explicit content from users’ photographs.
The investigations also identify a larger network, described as involving hundreds of connected apps and web domains, that appears to have been able to evade Apple’s review processes. The reporting describes remote server control that can determine which features a given user sees. The findings are presented as building on earlier research about nonconsensual sexual imagery reaching major app stores despite stated restrictions.
Outlets vary in emphasis: one highlights the secrecy and App Store evasion, another adds that the same apps were available on Google Play and that “violent” deepfake features were also present, while a third focuses on the broad scale of seemingly ordinary AI tools carrying hidden abusive capabilities.
