Primary Taiwanese news agency Central News Agency (CNA) recently reported that, Chinese AI chatbot DeepSeek shook the global industry overnight. However, from Washington DC to Seoul, multiple countries have prohibited its use on official devices citing security concerns.
Italy took the lead in taking action. The Roman authorities conducted an investigation on DeepSeek and banned it on Italian AppStore. Next, Taiwan prohibits government staff and key infrastructure employees from using DeepSeek, emphasizing the potential harm to national security. Australia followed suit a few days later. Then the South Korean Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Statistics and other ministries and police departments also prohibited the use of DeekSeek on military and government devices due to safety risks. In the United States, the state of Texas, the House of Representatives, the Department of Defense, the US Navy and NASA all banned DeekSeek on official devices and their networks.
The security concerns lie with the fact DeepSeek collects personal information and the chatbot can also collect a wide range of information in the conversation sessions with the users. In China, when the government requests, a company has legal obligations to provide user information regardless what is promised to the users. The Western countries start to realize it could be a national security issue given that DeepSeek is capable of collecting more data than other types of apps.
Source: CNA, February 7, 2025
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/aopl/202502070305.aspx