The Tech Transparency Project (TTP) is a research initiative of Campaign for Accountability, a 501(c)(3) nonpartisan nonprofit watchdog based in Washington, D.C. It describes itself as "an information and research hub for journalists, academics, policymakers and members of the public interested in exploring the influence of the major technology platforms on politics, policy, and our lives." TTP launched in 2016 as the Google Transparency Project and later broadened its coverage to all the major technology companies. Its director is Katie Paul (Source: techtransparencyproject.org). In 2026 its investigations centered on AI image-generation apps used to produce sexualized images of real people and on advertising for those apps on Meta's platforms.
| Field | Detail |
|---|---|
| Type | Research initiative of Campaign for Accountability, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit |
| Launched | 2016, as the Google Transparency Project |
| Director | Katie Paul |
| Funders named by TTP | Bohemian Foundation, Kapor Center, Craig Newmark Philanthropies, Reset Tech, Open Society Foundations, Skoll Foundation, David Magerman |
Organization and funding
TTP says it works with researchers, data scientists and open-records specialists, using public-records research, data analysis and open-records requests. It lists its funders as the Bohemian Foundation, Kapor Center, Craig Newmark Philanthropies, Reset Tech, Open Society Foundations, the Skoll Foundation and David Magerman, and states that it does not accept donations from corporations. It is a member of the Freedom from Facebook and Google coalition. Katie Paul also co-directs the Antiquities Trafficking and Heritage Anthropology Research (ATHAR) Project and is a founding member of the Alliance to Counter Crime Online (Source: techtransparencyproject.org).
Investigations of AI-generated sexual imagery
Nudify apps in app stores (January 2026). TTP searched the Apple App Store and Google Play for terms such as "nudify" and "undress" and tested apps in the top results. It reported finding 47 such apps in the Apple App Store, with 38 available in both stores, that had collectively been downloaded more than 705 million times and generated $117 million in revenue according to the analytics firm AppMagic; a search for "nudify" in Apple's store returned an advertisement for an undressing app followed by xAI's Grok as the first organic result. Both companies declined to comment to TTP; Apple told CNBC it had removed 28 of the apps identified and warned other developers (Source: techtransparencyproject.org).
Child sexual abuse material in Meta advertising (2026). TTP's first findings of advertisements containing AI-generated child sexual abuse material (CSAM) on Meta's platforms identified 53 such ads. A follow-up report published on September 8, 2026 said that more than 250 further ads containing CSAM had run across Meta's platforms since the start of August 2026, some using images of real children, bringing the total TTP had documented since the end of 2025 to more than 350; around 300 of them directed users to AI image or video generation apps, most linked to China-based developers. TTP said it reported all of the ads to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children's CyberTipline. "What we're talking about here is not simply AI-generated child sex abuse material," Paul told WIRED (Source: wired.com; TTP report: techtransparencyproject.org).
Coverage of the report gives different totals. The BBC reported that TTP found 332 ads containing CSAM on Facebook and Instagram, 274 of them in August 2026, running in the US, UK, EU, Australia and India; that TTP could report 55 of the 84 ads that ran in India through Meta's own tools and received, for 43 of those, a reply that the ad did not go against Meta's advertising standards; that several ads were placed by Meta's ad-agency partners in China; and that 17 further ads, 11 of them in India on September 1–2, appeared after TTP notified Meta (Source: bbc.com). The Straits Times reported the figure as more than 300 ads reaching more than 29,000 people in 2026 (Source: straitstimes.com).
Meta said that "We don't tolerate nudify apps or any kind of child exploitation, whether real or AI-generated," that it reports child-exploitation content to NCMEC, that many of the flagged ads had already been removed, that most had fewer than 200 impressions, and that total ad spend was under $5,000 (Source: bbc.com). Senator Mark Warner (D-VA), who had written to Mark Zuckerberg after WIRED's initial reporting, said it was "disappointing that Meta continues to run ads featuring child sexual abuse material and nonconsensual intimate images after it was brought to their attention" (Source: wired.com). State and foreign regulatory responses are recorded at AI and Children and Meta AI.
Provenance note: the September 2026 CSAM-advertising report is cited through TTP's own article URL and news coverage; the report itself has not been captured to
Raw Sources/.
Relationships
- related: Meta AI — subject of the 2026 CSAM-advertising investigations
- related: Apple, Google DeepMind — app-store operators examined in the January 2026 nudify-apps report
- related: xAI — Grok surfaced as a top result in TTP's app-store searches
- related: AI and Children — child-safety policy context for the CSAM findings
- related: Synthetic Media / Deepfakes — AI-generated sexual imagery of real people
- related: Mark Warner — pressed Meta over the ads