South Korea suspends local services of DeepSeek citing data privacy concerns

The South Korean government on Monday announced that it is temporarily suspending service of Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) app DeepSeek amid concerns over its data collection practices. The Personal Information Protection Commission said that the services of the app had been suspended from 6 pm (local time) on Saturday, Yonhap reported.

The South Korean officials noted that the app will be functional after "improvements and remedies" are made in line with South Korea's personal information protection laws. The latest announcement came just weeks after multiple government ministries and agencies blocked internal access to the AI services.

Meanwhile, South Korea also sent a formal inquiry to DeepSeek last month seeking clarification on the service's data collection and management methods. In response to the concerns, DeepSeek assigned a representative in South Korea and acknowledged shortcomings in respecting the country's data protection laws. The company assured that it will actively work with the commission and cooperate with the authorities throughout the process.

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South Korea is not the only country

It is pertinent to note that Seoul is not the only one to raise data security concerns with DeepSeek. Some government agencies in several nations are already seeking or enacting bans on AI software for their employees. On January 31, US space agency NASA blocked DeepSeek from its systems and the devices of its employees. A week before this, the American Navy also warned its members in an email against using DeepSeek because of “potential security and ethical concerns associated with the model’s origin and usage," CNBC reported.

The Australian government also announced earlier this month that it has blocked access to DeepSeek on all government devices, claiming there were “security risks”. On January 30, the Italian Data Protection Authority (Garante) announced that it had ordered “the limitation on the processing of Italian users’ data” by DeepSeek because of the lack of information about how the app might use personal user data provided by users. Taiwan has also blocked government departments from using DeepSeek programmes, blaming security risks.

Most of these countries blocking DeepSeek programmes argued that they are concerned about the security risks posed by the Chinese application. They also said that they don't have enough information about how the personal data of users will be stored or used by the group.

With inputs from agencies.