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Researchers' 13-Year-Old Test Accounts Downloaded 135 'Nudify' Apps From Apple and Google Stores, Guardian Reports

Bot Mutiny | October 19, 2026

Researchers posing as 13-year-olds were able to download 135 apps with features for stripping clothes off people or swapping faces onto nude bodies from the Apple and Google app stores, including on accounts with parental controls turned on, according to a report from the advocacy group Tech Transparency Project (TTP) that was shared exclusively with The Guardian and released on Monday, October 19, 2026. Apple and Google both prohibit such apps, and both responded to the findings.

What the researchers did

TTP created four test accounts, two Apple accounts and two Google accounts, each indicating the holder was 13 years old. They searched for image-editing or face-swapping apps using terms such as "AI video generator" or "adult AI." Using those accounts, they downloaded 135 apps with features that enable users to strip clothes from people or swap faces onto nude bodies, The Guardian reported. The researchers disrobed women in AI-generated images in their tests rather than using photographs of real women.

Two of the four accounts were placed under parental controls that only allowed downloads of apps marked suitable for 13-year-olds, and only with a parent's sign-off. The researchers found that neither Apple nor Google required or suggested parental sign-off for any of the nudification apps. The Apple account with parental controls still downloaded 24 of the apps because they were rated appropriate for 13-year-olds, and the Google account with parental controls downloaded 51.

Ratings and age checks

TTP found that Apple and Google largely rely on developers to decide whether an app is appropriate for certain ages. "Many nudify apps identified in the investigation were inaccurately rated as suitable for minors," the report said, meaning teens could reach them even with parental controls active.

One face-swapping app, which was advertised to the researchers with an image of a woman performing a sex act, was rated appropriate for ages four and up. The researchers bought a subscription from a 13-year-old's account without any alert reaching a linked parental account. According to the TTP study, another app, Image to Video Maker-Vidou AI, was rated appropriate for users aged nine and older and opened with an image of a topless woman on a bus.

Age restrictions were also not entirely effective, the study found. When the researchers tried to download an adult-rated app from the Apple App Store, a pop-up warned of age-restricted material, but the account was allowed to confirm it was 17 or older despite being registered as 13. The Google account without parental controls was blocked three times from downloading an age-restricted app but could otherwise download nudification apps that were self-reported as age-appropriate.

Apple and Google respond

Google spokesperson Dan Jackson said the company regularly takes "proactive steps to detect and remove apps with harmful content." Jackson said that when violations are detected or reported, Google investigates and takes swift action, "which in this case included suspending violating apps and restricting related search terms on our store."

After TTP contacted Apple for comment, the company strengthened its content moderation guidelines and now requires developers to preemptively prevent and remove nonconsensual intimate imagery, including AI-generated images, The Guardian reported. Apple said it reviews every app before publication and removes apps and developers that misrepresent features, and that it had taken action on the remaining apps in the report. Apple spokesperson Adam Dema said some apps in the report are mainstream photo and video editing tools "with legitimate, widely used functionality" that "do not have nudification or deepfake capabilities." Dema added: "We prohibit nudify apps on the App Store, and remove developers who add capabilities like it after the App Review process."

During the research, Apple took down 25 of the nudify apps and Google took down six, according to The Guardian. Removal did not stop use of an app that was already installed: the researchers could keep using an app they had downloaded after it was taken down, and Morgan Dorfman, a mother profiled below, found her copy of Movely still worked.

A Pennsylvania case

The Guardian opened its report with Morgan Dorfman, a mother whose daughter attends a Pennsylvania high school. In December 2025 she learned that a student there was using an image-editing app called Movely to create sexual videos from pictures of her daughter and five other girls. When Dorfman later returned to the App Store to take screenshots for a presentation to parents and law enforcement, Movely was no longer available to download, but it remained functional on her phone and she was still being charged for her paid subscription.

A school-wide email reviewed by The Guardian said the classmate used the app to animate images of other students but that there was no evidence he had done anything inappropriate. Days later, Radnor police criminally charged him with harassment, The Guardian reported. The Guardian reported that, in Dorfman's experience, accountability proved evasive: "I just wanted someone to make him delete all of these videos."

Context

The Guardian noted that governments around the world have moved to ban these platforms from app stores and that most U.S. states criminalize possession of AI-generated child sexual abuse material. Bot Mutiny has also covered a federal court's refusal to block Minnesota's nudification ban. TTP is an advocacy group, and its findings here are as reported by The Guardian; Bot Mutiny has not independently tested the apps.