The South Korean data protection authority concluded that Deepseek, the Chinese artificial intelligence startup, has collected personal information from local users and transferred them abroad without their permission.
Deepseek, Chinese Startup of artificial intelligence Photo: Getty Images
The authority, the Commission for the Protection of Personal Information (PICP), published on Thursday, April 24, 2025, its written conclusions regarding a revision of the confidentiality and security of Deepseek, according to the CNBC.
This follows the removal by Deepseek of its Chatbot application from South Korean applications stores in February, at the PICP recommendation. The agency said that Deepseek has committed to cooperate on his concerns.
During the presence of Deepseek to South Korea, it transferred the data of the users to several companies in China and the US without obtaining the necessary consent or without revealing this practice.
The agency has highlighted a particular case in which Deepseek has transferred information from your user -written requests, as well as device, network and applications to a Chinese cloud service platform called Beijing Volcano Engine Technology Co.
However, PIPC stressed that the Cloud platform is “a separate legal entity and is not related to Bytedance”, according to an automatic translation from the official declaration.
According to PIPC, Deepseek said he used the Beijing Volcano Engine Technology services to improve the security and experience of its application users, but later blocked the transfer of prompt information from April 10.
The investigation was launched after several South Korean government agencies forbade employees to use the Deepseek application on service devices. Similar measures would have been adopted by other governments, including Taiwan, Australia and the United States, writes CNBC.
What is known about Deepseek
Deepseek was founded at the end of 2023 by Chinese investor Liang Wenfeng, who previously drove high-flyer, a speculative fund focused on AI. Liang quickly won his reputation of Ai in China, attracting comparisons with Sam Altman, CEO of Openai.
In the last year, Deepseek has launched several models that have attracted the attention of the industry, although previous developments have faced criticisms due to content restrictions related to Chinese government policies. However, the R1 model, launched last week, was a real discovery due to its high performance and low development cost.
Deepseek also made its Open Source, allowing other companies to adapt and improve technology. Its application became rapidly popular, occupying first place in the discharge charts of the application store and reaching almost two million downloads.
