South Korea halts downloads of DeepSeek

On Monday, the South Korean government became the latest to ban downloads of DeepSeek — at least until further notice. The Chinese AI company’s apps, at the time of writing, were unavailable for download in Apple and Google’s mobile app marketplaces, though its website was still accessible.

South Korea’s Personal Information Protection Commission, the data privacy authority in the country, said the app “lacked transparency about third-party data transfers and potentially collected excessive personal information.” It’s unclear whether the third party in question is the Chinese government.

The government said the ban will only be lifted after DeepSeek adheres to the country’s privacy and security laws, which are considered among the world’s most stringent. While DeepSeek’s R1 model has quickly become one of the foremost large language models, it’s the first such one to hail from China — and thus, privacy advocates and global regulators have criticized its privacy policy, which states that the company will share data with China. “We store the information we collect in secure servers located in the People's Republic of China,” the policy says. The Chinese Foreign Ministry urged South Korea not to “politicize” trade issues and said Chinese companies comply with local laws where they operate.

Italy already banned DeepSeek nationwide over privacy concerns, while Taiwan and Australia each banned the app on government devices. In the United States, there’s no federal prohibition on government devices, but legislation was introduced earlier this month to do just that. Meanwhile, New York, North Carolina, Texas, and Virginia have all banned DeepSeek on state-owned devices.

Software is difficult to ban — especially since virtual private networks can mask one’s location — but countries concerned by Chinese access to their citizens’ data are trying their best.