South Korea has restricted access to DeepSeek on computers at trade and defence ministries over data management concerns, according to reports.
Chinese artificial intelligence company DeepSeek’s R1 model was blocked on official devices following a request from the country’s data watchdog on Thursday. South Korea has asked the startup for information on how it manages user data.
According to the defence ministry, access to DeepSeek on computers at the military has been suspended. The trade ministry, on the other hand, has temporarily blocked the chatbot on all computers at its offices.
“We have temporarily blocked DeepSeek since it has not responded to The Personal Information Protection Commission’s inquiry,” an official from the trade ministry told AFP.
Since its launch this year, DeepSeek has turned the global AI sector upside down. Many countries have demanded details on how the company handles their users’ personal information, with Italy being the first to ban the chatbot last month. Australia has also suspended AI platform from official devices.
DeepSeek is banned at official agencies in Taiwan too, with the government saying that it “endangers national information security”. In the US, Texas became the first state to suspend DeepSeek on federal devices.
