US teens can access ‘nudify’ apps despite Apple and Google’s parental controls, report finds

In December 2025, Morgan Dorfman received distressing news: a student at her daughter’s Pennsylvania high school was making AI-generated pornographic material using the daughter’s image.

He was using an artificial intelligence image-editing app called Movely to create sexual videos from pictures of her daughter and five other girls.

What Dorfman’s daughter experienced is not an anomaly: students in high schools across the US are reporting similar cases. Their classmates are generating nonconsensual pornographic or nude imagery using so-called “nudify apps”.

Governments around the world have moved to ban these AI platforms from app stores, and most US states have implemented laws that criminalize possession of AI-generated child sexual abuse material.

However, in spite of regulations prohibiting them, nudification apps are still proliferating and remain accessible to teens, according to a report from the digital advocacy group Tech Transparency Project (TTP) shared exclusively with the Guardian and released on Monday.

TTP researchers created four test accounts, two Apple accounts and two Google accounts, indicating the account holders were 13 years old. They searched for image-editing or face-swapping apps using terms such as “AI video generator” or “adult AI”. Using these accounts for a purported 13-year-old, the researchers were able to download 135 apps with features enabling them to strip people of their clothes or swap their faces on to nude bodies. The researchers disrobed women in AI-generated images in their tests rather than using photographs of real women.

At the time of her daughter’s distress, Dorfman didn’t know it was possible to create pornographic material of an everyday person so easily.

“All the girls were very scared and confused about what to do next,” Dorfman said. “I knew what a deepfake was, but I thought it was like Taylor Swift and people using celebrities’ [images],” Dorfman said. “I didn’t know it was possible to take any picture or any screenshot of anybody that you have and do this.”

Dorfman, a mother of four, spent weeks trying to figure out how the app worked and compiling material to educate other parents. She downloaded Movely and was immediately prompted to create suggestive videos using any image. The free version promoted sexually suggestive templates including “clothes explosion”, “brassiere unfasten” and “underwear drop”, according to a demonstration Dorfman put together for parents that the Guardian reviewed. In the paid version, it became more explicit: she saw templates for the types of pornographic situations in which, according a classmate, her daughter had appeared.

Both Apple and Google prohibit these types of apps from being distributed on their platforms. The companies also will often age-gate apps with adult content, restricting or blocking minors’ access. However, TPP researchers found that the companies largely rely on the developers to determine whether their apps are appropriate for certain ages.

“Many nudify apps identified in the investigation were inaccurately rated as suitable for minors – meaning the teen users could access them even when parental controls were activated,” the report said.

Researchers found that one face-swapping app, which was advertised to them with an image of a woman performing oral sex, was rated appropriate for ages four and up. The free version of the app prompted users to superimpose real women’s faces on to templates of women in lingerie or, if users paid, in pornographic situations. The researchers were able to buy a subscription to the app from a 13-year-old’s account without an alert to a linked parental account.

Google said the company regularly takes “proactive steps to detect and remove apps with harmful content”.

“When violations are detected or reported to us, we investigate and take swift action, which in this case included suspending violating apps and restricting related search terms on our store,” Google spokesperson Dan Jackson said in a statement.

After TTP contacted Apple seeking comment on the findings of their study, Apple implemented changes that strengthened content moderation guidelines. The company now requires developers to preemptively prevent and remove nonconsensual intimate imagery including AI-generated images. Apple also said that the company reviews every app before it is published and that if a developer misrepresents any features, the company removes the app and its developers. The company said in addition to apps they already removed before the TTP report was shared with them, the company has also “taken action” on the remaining apps mentioned in the report.

“A number of the apps in this report are mainstream photo and video editing tools with legitimate, widely used functionality, and do not have nudification or deepfake capabilities,” said Apple spokesperson Adam Dema. “We prohibit nudify apps on the App Store, and remove developers who add capabilities like it after the App Review process – a malicious tactic known as bait-and-switch.”

Of the four accounts the researchers created, two were placed under parental controls that only allowed users to download apps marked suitable for 13-year-olds and only then with a parental signoff. However, the researchers found that neither Apple nor Google required or suggested parental signoff to acquire any of the nudification apps.

One app, Image to Video Maker-Vidou AI, was rated appropriate for users aged nine and older. Upon opening the app, users were greeted by an image of a topless woman on a bus, according to the TTP study.

“The app had a feature that promised to digitally undress any person – and to demonstrate, it showed nude images of female celebrities,” the report read.

Age restrictions were also not entirely effective, the study found. In one case, when the researchers tried to download an adult-rated app from the Apple App Store, they came across a pop-up warning that the app contained “age-restricted material”. But all they had to do was confirm they were 17 or older, which Apple allowed the account to do despite its registered age being 13. The Google account without parental controls was blocked three times from downloading an age-restricted app but otherwise allowed the researchers to download nudification apps that were self-reported to be age-appropriate.

The Apple account that TTP set up parental controls for was still able to find and download 24 so-called “nudify” apps because they were all rated as appropriate for 13-year-olds. The Google account with parental controls was able to download 51 of these apps.

Removing image and video editing platforms from app stores was also not enough to prevent its use. In the course of TTP’s research, Apple took down 25 of the nudify apps, and Google took down six. However, the researchers were able to continue using the app since they had already downloaded it.

Dorfman had a similar experience with Movely, she said. While preparing a presentation for parents and law enforcement officials, she returned to the app and App Store to take screenshots when she realized it was no longer available to download. However, the app was already on her phone and it remained entirely functional. She was also still being charged for her paid subscription.

Once these nonconsensual images and videos are created, accountability proves evasive, Dorfman has found. “I just wanted someone to make him delete all of these videos,” she said.

In her daughter’s case, Dorfman feels her school has downplayed what happened. In a school-wide email the Guardian reviewed, the principal wrote that her daughter’s classmate did use the app to animate images of other students but that there was no evidence he had done anything inappropriate.

However, days later, Radnor police criminally charged him with harassment.

“The whole thing was dismissed as ‘it’s not real’,” Dorfman said. “The haunting trauma as a mom is that I can’t tell [my daughter] those videos are gone or who had them. We can’t search everyone’s phones, and he deleted the app.”