South Korea has joined the list of countries banning DeepSeek. According to South Korea’s Personal Information Protection Commission, the DeepSeek app was removed from Apple’s App Store and Google Play Store in the country on Saturday evening.
The emergence of the Chinese startup’s AI chatbot shook the world as it reportedly performed on par with OpenAI’s ChatGPT while costing a fraction of existing AI models. Naturally, DeepSeek gained popularity rapidly across the globe. In South Korea, DeepSeek was among the top apps with over a million weekly users.
DeepSeek’s popularity has invited scrutiny from several countries, which have restricted or banned the use of the AI model due to concerns regarding privacy and national security. South Korea has chosen to ban the chatbot outright after multiple government agencies banned employees from using the app on their work devices. It may become available in the country again once adjustments are made to comply with data protection laws.
Previously, Taiwan has banned the use of DeepSeek on government devices due to security risks. The Australian government has also done the same, citing security concerns. Authorities in France and Ireland have raised concerns regarding the storage of personal information. A US lawmaker has even proposed jail time for citizens caught using DeepSeek.
(Source: BBC)
Nurul Kamil contributed to this article.
