Italy has recently made a bold move by forbidding the work of Chinese company Deepseek in the country. This decision came after Deepseek claimed that it does not fall under European data protection legislation, a position deemed unreasonable by the Italian regulator Garante, who has since launched an investigation into the matter.
Prior to this development, Garante had requested information from Deepseek regarding the collection of personal data, including their sources, storage location, and legal basis for processing. Deepseek confirmed that they store information on servers in China, but their responses to other questions posed by the regulator were deemed “completely insufficient.”
This is not the first time Italy has taken decisive action against tech companies. In 2023, Garante temporarily blocked Chatgpt over concerns related to user data. Deepseek has now come under scrutiny for potentially engaging in personal information scraping, leading to a prohibition on the activities of Hangzhou Deepseek Artificial Intelligence and Beijing Deepseek Artificial Intelligence in Italy.
The repercussions of this situation extend beyond Italy. The Irish data protection body has also sought clarification from Deepseek regarding the processing of data belonging to Irish citizens. In Belgium, Testachats has initiated an investigation into the company for allegedly illegally transferring data. Deepseek has refrained from commenting on the ongoing developments.