South Korea has temporarily blocked downloads of the DeepSeek app from local app stores due to concerns over data privacy.
The country’s Personal Information Protection Commission (PIPC) announced on Saturday that the restriction will remain until the Chinese AI company adjusts its policies to comply with South Korean privacy laws.
Existing users can still access the app and web service, but officials have advised against sharing personal data on the platform until further notice.
The PIPC began investigating DeepSeek after its launch in South Korea in January and found issues related to third-party data sharing and privacy policies.
The investigation revealed that DeepSeek transferred South Korean user data to ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok.
In response, the company recently appointed a local representative and admitted it was unaware of South Korea’s privacy laws when launching the service. DeepSeek has pledged to work with authorities to resolve the issue.
Other government agencies in South Korea, including the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, police, and Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power, have also restricted access to DeepSeek on official devices over security concerns.
The concerns around DeepSeek are not limited to South Korea.
Australia has banned its use on government devices, Italy has ordered restrictions on its chatbot, and Taiwan has barred government departments from using the AI service.
DeepSeek, founded by Liang Feng in 2023 and based in Hangzhou, China, developed DeepSeek R1, an open-source AI model that competes with OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
