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. 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. 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.