The EU is banning “nudification” apps, AI-powered tools that can digitally remove clothing from images of people, to create non-consensual sexual content.
First popularized in 2017, these apps have evolved at an alarming rate: they use generative AI to analyse the contours of a clothed subject and render a synthetic naked body in its place. Through advanced diffusion models, they can produce high-resolution, photorealistic results from a single social media photo in seconds.
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As of 2026, deepfake porn apps have been downloaded more than 705 million times worldwide. Reports indicate a 118% increase in 2024 alone and a tenfold rise in AI incidents by early 2026, of which 99% involved women. Part of this surge involved Grok, Elon Musk’s chatbot, generating millions of non-consensual sexually explicit images of women and children.
On May 7th, EU lawmakers reached a deal to explicitly ban nudification apps, describing it as a moral and legal “red line”. The agreements keeps AI systems primarily intended for "undressing" people in images, or depicting identifiable individuals in sexually explicit scenarios without their consent, from being used or placed in the EU market. The enforcement mechanism requires developers and app stores to remove these services by December 2026 or face severe financial penalties.
Do you agree with this ban? Should the EU do more about these apps? Our poll is anonymous and takes only a few seconds to complete. The results will be featured across EU-wide XL coverage - in videos, articles and newsletters - and will help shape our reporting as we examine how Europe can secure its position in the age of artificial intelligence.