Australia latest to ban usage of DeepSeek in government devices
By Amit Roy Choudhury
Data privacy concerns and “national security interests” are being cited as reasons behind banning the Chinese AI chatbot.
While Australia joins other countries in banning the use of the Chinese GenAI chatbot, DeepSeek, other countries like India are looking at solutions that allow it to use the open-source tool while taking care of the data security concerns that have led to the bans. Image: Canva
Australia became the latest country to ban the use of open-source Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot DeepSeek from federal government computers and mobile devices after it posed "an unacceptable risk" to national security.
All government bodies, except corporate organisations like Australia Post and the ABC, will be forced to remove all DeepSeek products from their devices effective immediately.
According to media reports, the Australian Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said DeepSeek posed an "unacceptable risk" to government technology and the immediate ban was “to protect Australia’s national security and national interest."
First released to the public on January 20, DeepSeek’s AI models have upended the technology world order and wreaked havoc in the stock markets. It has garnered both raving reviews as well as sharp criticism.
Commentators have said that the Chinese AI start-up has turned out to be a Sputnik moment for US dominance of AI and AI-related hardware technology.
However, as the dust settles, security concerns have begun to take centre stage as governments rush to understand the security implications of the Chinese generative AI (GenAI) model.
Italy became the first country in the world to ban DeepSeek on January 28. This came after Italy’s Data Protection Authority (DPA) launched an investigation into DeepSeek’s data collection practices and compliance with the European Union (EU) data protection laws.
The Chinese start-up was given 20 days to respond to the questions on how they used and stored personal data. However, it claimed that its apps did not fall under the jurisdiction of EU laws.
The Italian Data Protection Authority ordered a nationwide ban on DeepSeek on January 28, preventing anyone in the country from downloading the app through the app stores of Apple and Google.
The Irish authorities have also sent a similar request to DeepSeek. The Chinese start-up has yet to respond to the request and reports say the app is no longer available in the Google and Apple app stores in the country.
Countries raise concerns
Meanwhile, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands have also raised concerns about the DeepSeek app’s data collection practices.
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The Taiwanese government has banned its government agencies from using DeepSeek with the Ministry of Digital Affairs said the Chinese chatbot “endangers national information security.”
According to a report in TechCrunch, members of the US congressional offices have reportedly been warned not to use DeepSeek. A report by Axios said the House’s Chief Administrative Officer said DeepSeek is under review and that "threat actors are already exploiting DeepSeek to deliver malicious software and infect devices".
Texas became the first state in the US to ban the Chinese app on state government-issued devices. Elsewhere, the US Navy, Pentagon and NASA have banned the use of the chatbot in company-issued devices.
A newly proposed law in the US could see citizens face significant fines or even jail time for using the DeepSeek app.
According to a Bloomberg report, hundreds of companies, particularly those associated with governments, have worked to block access to DeepSeek due to concerns about potential data leaks to the Chinese government and what they view as weak privacy safeguards.
Different approach
Interestingly, India - which has previously banned hundreds of Chinese apps for security concerns - has been an outlier in its response to DeepSeek.
India’s Minister for Electronics and Information Technology, Ashwini Vaishnaw, has said the Indian government plans to host DeepSeek’s AI model on local servers.
Data privacy issues regarding DeepSeek can be addressed by hosting the open-source model on Indian servers, even as the country accelerates efforts to develop its own large language model (LLM) within the next 10 months, he said.
The Minister said the country’s approach to DeepSeek was similar to that it has taken to host Llama (an LLM developed by Meta AI) on Indian servers.
“Everything that is open source can be hosted on our servers so that data privacy parameters can be tested,” the minister was quoted as saying.
According to analysts, India is betting that it can get around the concern that user data could be shared with the government in China by DeepSeek, as mandated by law, could be circumvented by hosting it on local servers.
Due to its open-source nature, as of now, the Indian approach to using DeepSeek is likely to be followed with interest by several countries looking for a high-quality but low-cost generative AI (GenAI) chatbot, according to analysts.
While governments and corporations are mulling whether or not to use or ban DeepSeek, its direct competitor OpenAI and its principal backer Microsoft, are probing if data outputs from OpenAI were obtained in an unauthorised manner by the creators of DeepSeek, according to a report from Bloomberg.
At the same time, underlining the hugely competitive nature of the technology and the GenAI industry, Microsoft has made DeepSeek R1 available on Azure AI Foundry and GitHub, presumably to ensure that its competitors do not leave it behind.
Most industry watchers are waiting to see what the official US government stance will be to gauge how DeepSeek’s usage and acceptance will be globally in the medium to long term.