Taiwan has banned government agencies from using DeepSeek, citing security concerns.
Taiwan’s Ministry of Digital Affairs said in a statement on Friday that public sector workers and critical infrastructure facilities should not use the Chinese company’s technology, as “its operation involves cross-border transmission and information leakage” and “endangers national information security.”
Chinese AI lab DeepSeek made headlines in January after unveiling a new flagship AI model called R1, which it says matches the reasoning capabilities of US models such as OpenAI’s o1 but for a fraction of the cost.
Its arrival sent shock waves through markets, with AI stocks tumbling last week.
But the company is already facing regulatory hurdles in some countries.
Italy’s Data Protection Authority (called Garante) announced on Thursday that it had blocked access to the DeepSeek app to protect Italian users’ data.
Garante said the decision came as it was unhappy with DeepSeek’s response to a query about the app’s use of personal data.
“Contrary to what was found by the Authority, the companies declared that they do not operate in Italy and that European legislation does not apply to them,” Garante said in a statement, adding that it was launching an investigation.
Ireland’s Data Protection Commission reportedly said earlier this week that it had also written to DeepSeek for more information about how it processes Irish users’ data.
In the UK, Feryal Clark, the AI minister, issued a warning to British citizens thinking of using DeepSeek.
“Ultimately it is a personal choice for people, whether they decide to download it or not,” Clark said in an interview with Bloomberg. “My advice will be to make sure if people are downloading it that they are alert to the potential risks and they know how their data will be used.”
DeepSeek, which began as an AI side project for Chinese entrepreneur Liang Wenfeng, was founded in 2023.
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