South Korea has formally suspended new downloads of Chinese language synthetic intelligence (AI) chatbot DeepSeek within the nation till the service makes adjustments to its cellular apps to adjust to knowledge safety rules.
Downloads have been paused as of February 15, 2025, 6:00 p.m. native time, the Private Info Safety Fee (PIPC) said in a press release. The online service stays accessible.
The company stated it commenced its personal evaluation of DeepSeek proper after its launch and that it “recognized some shortcomings in communication capabilities and private info processing insurance policies with third-party service suppliers.”
DeepSeek is claimed to have lately appointed a neighborhood consultant, per PIPC, with the corporate additionally acknowledging it had did not think about home privateness legal guidelines when launching the service.
To that finish, downloads of DeepSeek are being paused till the corporate implements the mandatory enhancements that convey the service in compliance with the Private Info Safety Act.
“This short-term suspension of the DeepSeek app restricts new app downloads from the app market, and we ask current customers to make use of it cautiously, equivalent to not coming into private info within the DeepSeek enter window (immediate) till the ultimate outcomes are introduced,” the company famous.
Moreover, PIPC intends to make sure compliance and enhance steerage in order to stop related lapses from occurring sooner or later.
The event comes shortly after South Korea’s Nationwide Intelligence Service (NIS) called out the service for “excessively” gathering private knowledge and utilizing the knowledge to coach its AI methods.
In latest weeks, DeepSeek’s Android and iOS apps have additionally been discovered to comprise safety weaknesses that enable sure knowledge to be despatched to its servers in unencrypted format.
Beijing has beforehand said it permits web corporations internationally to function within the nation so long as they observe native legal guidelines and rules, and that it might by no means ask any firm or particular person to gather or retailer knowledge in breach of legal guidelines..
