In South Korea, the DeepSeek application loading has been suspended due to violations of personal data protection rules. The ban came into effect on February 15 and will remain in place until all violations are rectified.
The PIPC regulator reported that the Chinese company failed to fully comply with South Korean legislation on personal data protection. DeepSeek has appointed legal representatives in the country and acknowledged the discrepancies. However, the web version of the service is still accessible to users.
This suspension follows similar action taken in Italy, where the local data protection body demanded the blocking of DeepSeek in January due to issues with their confidentiality policy. Despite international scrutiny, representatives from the Chinese startup have not yet responded to the situation.
In response to these developments, China’s Foreign Ministry emphasized their commitment to data protection, stating that the Chinese government does not condone the collection or storage of data that violates the law.
South Korea’s intelligence agency previously accused the DeepSeek application of excessive personal data collection and utilizing user-entered data to train a model. They also raised concerns about the objectivity of the AI responses on questions related to national identity.
Some South Korean ministries have already blocked access to the application, joining Australia and Taiwan in expressing concerns and implementing restrictions on DeepSeek. The possibility of prohibition is also being considered in the USA.
Moreover, the prosecutor general of Texas, Ken Paxton, has announced an investigation into the Chinese company DeepSeek for suspected violations of data confidentiality laws. As part of the investigation, the prosecutor’s office has requested analyses from Google and Apple regarding the DeepSeek application and the documentation required for it to be available in their app stores.