The rise of AI tools creating explicit images poses legal and safety challenges for educators #
For substitute teacher Luis DeSantiago, the ordeal began with a text message. He was working a shift at his part-time coffee shop job in Los Banos, California, on 12 March when a colleague messaged him about an AI-generated image circulating on social media that people believed showed him. 'When I finally saw the image, that's when it felt like a punch to the gut,' DeSantiago told WIRED. Parts of the picture resembled a mirror selfie he remembered taking at a previous job, but his work uniform had been replaced with lingerie, and his pose altered to something suggestive.
How a Doctored Selfie Circulated Through Two California Schools #
DeSantiago traced the image to a TikTok account using the real name of a student he recognised from a local middle school where he regularly worked. He suspected two further students were involved, based on who followed and engaged with the account.
He reported it to the school's assistant principal, who told him the matter would be 'taken care of'. Searching his own name on TikTok that evening, DeSantiago found a second account impersonating him, using a misspelt version of his name and the same doctored image as its profile picture.
One student admitted creating the image and received in-school suspension, but it kept circulating, reappearing on Snapchat and drawing crude comments on his account. DeSantiago told administrators he did not want further assignments there 'until this matter is fully addressed'. The Los Banos Unified School District did not respond to WIRED's request for comment before publication.
The disruption followed him to the local high school, where a classroom AirDrop briefly circulated the same image before the school revoked access to AirDrop in that classroom. DeSantiago says he does not currently feel safe returning to the district.
Nudify Apps Downloaded Nearly Half a Billion Times #
DeSantiago's case sits within a wider pattern documented by WIRED, which spoke to three further teachers who allege students used AI tools to create sexualised images or videos of them.
The apps involved fall into a category researchers call 'nudify' tools – AI programmes that strip clothing from photos or swap faces onto explicit images. A Tech Transparency Project investigation published in April found nudify apps surfaced through Apple App Store and Google Play searches had been downloaded 483 million times, generating more than $122 million (£94 million) in lifetime revenue. The same investigation found 31 of the apps were rated suitable for minors.
Why Schools Are Struggling To Police AI-Generated Harassment #
Under the federal Take It Down Act, publishing nonconsensual 'intimate visual depictions of individuals, both authentic and computer-generated' online is a criminal offence.
Employment lawyer Donna Ballman told WIRED that a student creating and sharing sexual images of a teacher constitutes a 'clear case' of sexual harassment in the workplace, and that employers have an obligation to keep the workplace free of it. She added there is 'no blueprint' for how schools must respond, and administrators are not required to tell a victimised teacher how a student was disciplined.
The proliferation of nudify apps is not limited to harassment between students and staff. The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children's own 2025 CyberTipline data recorded more than 400,000 reports involving generative AI in 2025, of which over 182,000 involved offenders possessing, generating or attempting to generate AI-generated child sexual abuse material.
NCMEC states it is tracking cases in which individuals, often classmates or peers, use nudify apps to create and spread this content. Regulators, including several US attorneys general, have flagged the same accessible tools as a growing enforcement gap, since existing school harassment policies and child protection law were not built with AI generation in mind.
Until app stores and lawmakers close that gap, schools are left to write their own rules for a problem the technology is creating faster than policy can keep up.
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