Apple’s illustration for its App Store fraud prevention report in May 2026. Image: Apple
Apple has rewritten its App Review Guidelines so that AI image and content creation apps must actively stop people making nonconsensual intimate images, including AI fakes, or risk being thrown off the App Store. The update, published on October 16, also adds a new rule against “bait-and-switch” apps that hide what they can do until after Apple approves them, a tactic Apple says is used to slip “nudification” features past its reviewers.
AI content creation apps are now named in the rules #
Guideline 1.2, the section on user-generated content, now lists “nonconsensual intimate imagery” among the problems these apps create, alongside copyright infringement and anonymous bullying. The revised text says the rule covers apps that let people “create, generate, upload, share, or otherwise contribute content”, and names “AI content creation apps” next to social media and user-generated content platforms.
Those apps already had to filter objectionable material, let users report offensive content and block abusive accounts, and publish contact details. What is new is the consequence. Developers who “fail to implement appropriate safeguards or fail to remediate identified violations after notice” may now be treated as breaking Apple’s Developer Code of Conduct, which can lead to removal from the App Store. In its announcement Apple says nonconsensual intimate imagery, “including imagery generated using AI tools”, is content apps “must proactively prevent and remove”.
Apple points out that pornography has long been banned, including apps that generate nude or explicit images of real people without their consent. The change makes AI generators explicitly responsible for what their users make with them.
A new rule against bait-and-switch apps #
New guideline 2.5.19 reads: “Don’t include any hidden, dormant, or undocumented features in your app; your app’s functionality should be clear to end users and App Review.” Hiding features in the app’s code, for example through obfuscation, is grounds for removal and termination of the developer account. Apple says the rule spells out a long-standing policy that used to sit in guideline 2.3.1, and that apps caught doing it face removal from the Apple Developer Program too. The scale is not small. Apple’s fraud report in May said it removed nearly 59,000 apps in 2025 for bait-and-switch tactics, such as puzzle or calculator apps that changed after review, and rejected more than 22,000 submissions for hidden or undocumented features. It also terminated 193,000 developer accounts over fraud concerns.
Child exploitation apps blocked everywhere #
Section 5 now says apps found to facilitate human trafficking or the exploitation of children will be removed from the App Store “and blocked from alternative distribution”. That matters in the European Union and other places where iPhone apps can be installed from rival stores and websites but still pass through Apple’s notarisation checks.
Apple’s posts don’t name any app or company. The rules follow a difficult year for AI image tools. Apple warned xAI in January that it could pull Grok from the App Store over sexualised deepfakes, according to a letter to US senators that NBC News obtained in April. In July, San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu demanded Apple and Google remove 13 nudify apps, eight of them on the App Store. This week New York City Council Speaker Julie Menin said Grok made a sexualised image of her in seconds, while xAI has got Minnesota’s nudification ban put on hold in court.
The other changes are smaller: a new guideline 2.3.14 on “creative assets”, the promotional images apps can now show in search and on product pages, and a tidied rule on external purchase links for music streaming apps. Translations of the updated guidelines will follow within a month.
Why it matters #
The App Store is the only way most iPhone owners get apps, so Apple’s rules reach further than many laws. Naming AI generators directly puts general-purpose image tools on notice, not only dedicated nudify apps. The open question is enforcement: Apple’s rules already banned pornography when Grok and nudify apps were on sale.