DeepSeek banned in South Korea

South Korea has temporarily banned the Chinese AI DeepSeek. The Personal Information Protection Commission (PIPC) based its decision on data protection concerns.

The app’s service will only be resumed once improvements have been made in accordance with South Korean data protection laws. According to PIPC, DeepSeek is currently working actively with the data protection authority.

China’s foreign office explained that the government always instructs Chinese companies to strictly adhere to the laws in force abroad, said spokesman Guo Jiakun in Beijing. China also hopes that countries will avoid “politicizing economic, trade and technological issues”, he said.

Authorities and cyber security experts in Germany have also reported serious security concerns with regard to the Chinese AI DeepSeek. This concerns several points: the apparently very extensive storage of user data, the potential manipulability of the application for criminal purposes and the extent to which the Chinese espionage and surveillance apparatus has access to user data.

dpa