A new report has shed light on a concerning gap in the App Store’s vetting process, revealing that Apple has been hosting dozens of apps associated with foreign entities under U.S. government sanctions.
According to an investigation by the non-profit Tech Transparency Project (TTP), which was reported by The Washington Post, both Apple and Google have allowed apps tied to accused malefactors to remain available for download. This includes software linked to Russian banks blacklisted following the invasion of Ukraine and companies involved in human rights abuses in China.
The TTP investigation identified a significant number of apps that appear to violate U.S. sanctions laws. These laws generally prohibit American companies from doing business with “Specially Designated Nationals,” a roster maintained by the Treasury Department.
While Google was found to have 18 apps, the report states that Apple hosted 52 such apps. During the research period, Apple removed 17 of these apps, and took down another 18 after being contacted by researchers.
Among the entities found on the App Store were apps serving the National Standard Bank Joint Stock Company in Russia and the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC) in China. The latter is a paramilitary group sanctioned for its role in human rights abuses against Uyghurs in the Xinjiang region.
Some apps used names that varied slightly from the official Treasury list. For instance, some Russian entities added the corporate abbreviation “OOO” to their names, while others listed developers who weren’t explicitly sanctioned but revealed their ties to sanctioned entities in their privacy policies.
Joshua Hodges, a member of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, noted that this is a “broader problem.” Companies often change names or morph into new entities, making it difficult for enforcement agencies and app store reviewers to keep up.
In that instance, the oversight was due to a minor spelling mismatch in Apple’s screening tools—the difference between “SIS DOO” and “SIS d.o.o.” At the time, Apple promised to revamp its search tools to better capture these variations. However, legal experts cited in the Post suggest that the recent findings indicate the revamp hasn’t been foolproof, potentially exposing Apple to tougher regulatory scrutiny.
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