DeepSeek Banned from Government Devices in Taiwan

Taiwan has decided to block the use of DeepSeek by public sector employees, saying the measure was necessary due to prevent possible data leaks. 

DeepSeek is a new Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) company that brought to market a new large language model that promised the same type of performance as its Western counterparts but with much lower costs. 

After the initial wave of impressions faded, questions about the collected data started to emerge, focusing on its data-collection policies. The company says in its license agreement, for the chatbot at least, that everything collected from users, including keystrokes, is sent back to China. 

Authorities worldwide are taking notice and, slowly, have begun to forbid the use of the technology on government-issued devices. The US state of Texas was the first to take this measure, but the same thing happened in Italy, Australia, South Korea, and now Taiwan. 

“Government agencies and critical infrastructure should not use DeepSeek because it endangers national information security,” said Taiwan’s Ministry of Digital Affairs in a statement to Radio Free Asia.

“DeepSeek AI service is a Chinese product. Its operation involves cross-border transmission, and information leakage and other information security concerns,” the authorities added.

The ban is quite extensive and covers pretty much any government employee, including public schools and even semi-official organizations.

DeepSeek has attracted a lot of attention in the past couple of weeks, especially because of its Chinese roots. The fact that it sends back to China all the data collected from the interactions with users is a major problem that will create problems in more and more countries.