The Privacy Committee (PIPC), South Korea’s data privacy watchdog agency, said on Thursday that China’s Deepseek Artificial Intelligence (AI) had transferred user data to Chinese and US companies without proper consent.
Deepseek is an AI platform debut This is because in early 2025 the world of Tech was developed at a certain cost of competing products such as ChatGpt. Deepseek was one of the most downloaded apps in the world before cybersecurity analysts pointed out that it was a mix of nightmares. User privacy violation And the Chinese Communist Party censorship.
Deepseek was only available in South Korea for about a month before the government banned privacy concerns. PIPC is fast It’s decided The program was supplying user data to Bidance, creating a controversial Chinese technology giant and another infamous and intrusive online product, Tiktok.
In February, PIPC asked Deepseek startups to suspend further downloads of Korean products until the results of a full investigation were revealed, and Chinese companies were compliant. The app was not technically banned, but Korean users are no longer able to download it.
“The committee is in the process of investigating whether Deepseek will cause harm. A full-scale ban may be controversial before the liability is officially determined,” the PIPC explained in February.
The Chinese government was furious at South Korea’s actions, accusing Seoul of “politicizing” AI technology, and argued that Chinese companies would always respect foreign privacy rights and regulations.
Chinese officials hinted that South Korea was acting at the US request as the U.S. House Selection Committee on the Communist Party of China discovered in late January that Deepshek’s response to user queries was heavily compiled to comply with China’s communist ideology. Deepseek is now under investigation by the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Data Privacy Issues and Possible Relations with the Chinese Government.
Korea’s survey Found That DeepSeek transferred data from up to 1.5 million users in China to three companies and one in the US between January 15th and February 15th, when downloads were suspended.
According to investigators, Deepseek sent information about Korean computers, networks and software applications overseas, along with the content of questions asked AI, as well as overseas software applications.
PIPC said DeepSeek never obtained user consent for these data transfers, did not warn users about users in its privacy statement, and did not employ age verification to prevent data from being retrieved from children under the age of 14. Deepseek also failed to provide users with an “opt-out” to prevent questions from being used in Chinese artificial intelligence development.
PIPC has given DeepSeek a further 10 days to accept recommendations to comply with South Korea’s data privacy laws and to implement them. The company claimed it was already addressing some issues. PIPC did not provide a schedule as to when Deepseek could resume its operations in Korea.
