South Korean officers on Saturday briefly restricted Chinese AI Lab DeepSeek’s app from being downloaded from app shops within the nation pending an evaluation of how the Chinese firm handles person information.
The Personal Information Protection Commission (PIPC) stated the Chinese app can be accessible to be downloaded as soon as it complies with Korean privateness legal guidelines and makes the mandatory modifications.
The restrictions is not going to have an effect on utilization of the prevailing app and internet service within the nation. However, the information safety authority stated it “strongly advises” present customers to keep away from coming into private data into DeepSeek till its remaining resolution is made.
Following the discharge of the DeepSeek service in South Korea in late January, the PIPC stated it reached out to the Chinese AI lab to inquire the way it collects and processes private information, and in its analysis, discovered points with DeepSeek’s third-party service and privateness insurance policies.
The PICC confirmed to TechCrunch that its investigation discovered DeepSeek had transferred information of South Korean customers to ByteDance, the mother or father firm of TikTok.
DeepSeek didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark.
The company stated DeepSeek just lately appointed an area consultant in South Korea and acknowledged that it was not aware of South Korea’s privateness legal guidelines when it launched its service. The Chinese firm additionally stated final Friday that it might collaborate carefully with Korean authorities.
Earlier this month, South Korea’s Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, police, and a state-run firm, Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power, briefly blocked entry to the Chinese AI startup on official units citing safety issues.
South Korea just isn’t the one nation being cautious with DeepSeek given its Chinese origins. Australia has prohibited the usage of DeepSeek on authorities units out of safety issues. The Garante, Italy’s information safety authority, has instructed DeepSeek to dam its chatbot within the nation, whereas Taiwan has banned authorities departments from utilizing DeepSeek AI.
Hangzhou city-based DeepSeek was based by Liang Feng in 2023, and it launched DeepSeek R1, a free, open-source reasoning AI mannequin that competes with OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
