Athira Sethu
Kochi, 17 February 2025
South Korea’s data protection agency has halted new downloads of the Chinese AI app DeepSeek. This comes after the firm acknowledged that it had not complied with the nation’s regulations for safeguarding personal data. The service of the app will only be reinstated once it is in line with South Korea’s privacy law, according to the Personal Information Protection Commission (PIPC).
The suspension, which started on Saturday, blocks new users from downloading the app. However, the web version of DeepSeek is still available in South Korea. Last week, the Chinese company that owns DeepSeek hired legal representatives in South Korea and admitted that it had ignored some of the nation’s data protection laws. The PIPC verified this admission in a statement to the media.
Aside from South Korea’s move, DeepSeek was also questioned in Italy. The Italian data protection agency, or the Garante, directed the app to suspend its chatbot in Italy after DeepSeek did not respond to privacy issues raised by the regulator regarding its policy.
Up to this moment, DeepSeek has not provided comment on actions from South Korea or Italy. Upon inquiry for comment on issues raised by South Korea, a Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman answered on 6 February. The spokeswoman laid out that the issue of privacy and security matters when it comes to data is a serious affair, and so the nation maintains laws to guarantee the protection of data of this sort. They also guaranteed that the Chinese government would never ask any company or individual to collect or store data illegally.
This blocking of services in Italy and suspension of new downloads in South Korea emphasize concerns regarding data privacy, particularly with foreign apps that might not comply with local regulations.
