The Chinese AI app DeepSeek will be temporarily unavailable for download in South Korea pending a review of its user data handling, Seoul authorities announced Monday. The app’s R1 chatbot has impressed investors and industry experts for its ability to compete with Western counterparts at a much lower cost.
However, concerns have arisen in multiple countries about how DeepSeek stores user data, which the company claims is held in “secure servers located in the People’s Republic of China.”
On Monday, South Korea‘s Personal Information Protection Commission stated that DeepSeek would be removed from app stores until it undergoes an evaluation of its personal data collection practices. The data protection agency noted that DeepSeek “acknowledged that considerations for domestic privacy laws were somewhat lacking.”
It added that aligning the app with local privacy laws “would inevitably take a significant amount of time,” prompting the agency to recommend that DeepSeek temporarily suspend its service while it makes improvements. The company has “accepted” this recommendation.
The app was removed from local app stores on Saturday at 6:00 pm (0900 GMT) and is currently unavailable. However, users who have already downloaded the app can continue to use it. Seoul’s data protection agency has issued a strong advisory, urging users to “use the service with caution until the final results are announced,” including refraining from entering personal information into the DeepSeek input field.
Analyst Youm Heung-youl from Soonchunhyang University pointed out that DeepSeek has not yet provided a privacy policy “specifically tailored” to South Korean users, though it has released policies for the EU and other countries. “DeepSeek needs to establish a privacy policy specific to Korea,” he said.
In addition to South Korea, several other countries have taken action against DeepSeek. Various South Korean government ministries and police have blocked the app on their devices. Italy is investigating the app and has prohibited it from processing data for Italian users. Australia has banned DeepSeek from all government devices on the advice of security agencies, while US lawmakers have proposed a bill to ban the app from being used on government devices due to data security concerns.
In response, the Chinese government has opposed the “politicisation of economic, trade and technological issues” and has reiterated that it “has never and will never require enterprises or individuals to illegally collect or store data.”
