April 24, 2025
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S. Korea says DeepSeek transferred knowledge to Chinese language firm with out consent
Chinese language synthetic intelligence app DeepSeek was transferring private knowledge to a cloud companies platform with out customers' consent whereas it was nonetheless obtainable for obtain, South Korea's knowledge safety authority stated on Thursday.
The Private Data Safety Fee (PIPC) stated the data, which included gadget, community and person inputs in AI prompts, was transferred to servers at Beijing platform Volcano Engine.
DeepSeek's R1 chatbot surprised buyers and trade insiders in January with its means to match the capabilities of its Western opponents at a fraction of the price.
Nevertheless, international locations together with South Korea, Italy and Australia and a few US states have questioned DeepSeek's storage of person knowledge and have banned or restricted its use.
The PIPC launched an investigation in February and stated DeepSeek would now not be obtainable for obtain till a evaluate of its private knowledge assortment practices was accomplished.
"Initially, DeepSeek transferred private knowledge to firms positioned in China and the USA with out acquiring customers' consent or disclosing this within the privateness coverage on the time the service was launched," fee official Nam Seok instructed reporters.
"Specifically, it was confirmed that DeepSeek transferred not solely gadget, community, and app data, but in addition person inputs in AI prompts to Volcano Engine," he stated.
Following the investigation, DeepSeek "acknowledged it had insufficiently thought of Korea's knowledge safety legal guidelines, expressed its willingness to cooperate with the fee, and voluntarily suspended new downloads from home app markets", Nam stated.
Requested about South Korea's findings about DeepSeek, Beijing stated it was not accustomed to the "particular scenario".
"However I can emphasize that the Chinese language authorities attaches nice significance to and protects knowledge privateness and safety," International Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun instructed a daily information convention.
"It has by no means and can by no means require firms or people to gather or retailer knowledge in a fashion that violates the regulation," Guo stated.
DeepSeek didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark. It has stated that knowledge was collected in "safe servers positioned within the Individuals's Republic of China".
The corporate claims its AI instrument was constructed utilizing much less subtle chips than its opponents, slashing the price. The app was downloaded tens of thousands and thousands of instances in just some weeks after its launch.
Volcano Engine is a Beijing-based cloud service platform owned by ByteDance, which can be the dad or mum firm of the vastly standard platform TikTok.
Requested concerning the knowledge switch to Volcano Engine, DeepSeek stated it was despatched "for the aim of addressing safety vulnerabilities and enhancing person interface and expertise", Nam stated.
© 2025 AFP
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