South Koreaʼs data protection regulator has accused Chinese AI startup DeepSeek of transferring information about its users to TikTokʼs owner in China, ByteDance.
This is reported by the Yonhap agency.
South Korea has already removed DeepSeek from the countryʼs Apple and Google app stores over concerns about protecting its citizensʼ data. It was downloaded over a million times in South Korea before it disappeared from the app stores.
South Koreaʼs Personal Data Protection Commission said it had discovered a connection between DeepSeek and ByteDance, but has not yet clarified what data was transferred and how much.
Critics of China have long argued that the National Intelligence Law allows the Chinese government to access any data from Chinese companies.
South Korea is not the first country to restrict DeepSeek’s operations. In Taiwan, all government agencies and critical infrastructure companies are banned from using the new chatbot. DeepSeek was also banned in Italy after the chatbot refused to disclose to the local regulator what personal data it collects from users and said that European law does not apply to it. A ban on government officials has also been imposed in Australia.
The Pentagon and the US Congress also banned their personnel from using DeepSeek. The ban was later imposed in the Netherlands.
What is DeepSeek?
On January 27, DeepSeek overtook ChatGPT to become the most popular free app on the App Store. On the same day, the Chinese chatbot was subjected to a massive cyberattack.
DeepSeek was founded in 2023 by Liang Wenfeng, a 40-year-old graduate of the School of Information and Electronic Engineering. He set up a store for Nvidia A100 chips, which are now banned from being exported to China. Media reports suggest that this may have prompted him to launch DeepSeek, combining those chips with cheaper, lower-end ones that are still available for import.
DeepSeek is based on the open-source DeepSeek-V3 model. Some experts say that the model was developed for less than $6 million — competitors spend much more. However, other experts dispute this information.
OpenAI, the creator of the artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT, said on January 29 that Chinese companies are “constantly” trying to use American competitors to improve their AI models.
For more news and in-depth stories from Ukraine please follow us on X.