Apple said on 16 October that it revised its App Review Guidelines, the rules apps must meet for the App Store. Section 1.2 now names nonconsensual intimate imagery, including images made with AI tools, as content apps must prevent and remove. Rule 2.5.19 restates a long-standing ban on hidden or undocumented features. Apple says apps that misrepresent themselves in review and then change after approval can be removed from the App Store and the Apple Developer Program. Section 5 now says apps that facilitate human trafficking or child exploitation will be removed and blocked from alternative distribution.
Apple says the update builds on existing protections. Apps that make sexual images of real people without consent were already barred. Apple says developers who lack safeguards, or ignore a notice, risk breaking its Developer Code of Conduct. The sources do not say when the changes take effect. They also do not say how Apple finds hidden features.
Rule 2.5.19 spells out that adding features after approval that were not in the reviewed version can cost a developer the app and their place in the Developer Program. Leaders of teams that ship AI image features can ask: can we list every feature in each release, even switched-off ones? Can we show that filtering, reporting and blocking work?