South Korea has accused Chinese language AI startup DeepSeek of sharing person information with the proprietor of TikTok in China.
“We confirmed DeepSeek speaking with ByteDance,” the South Korean information safety regulator informed Yonhap News Agency.
The nation had already removed DeepSeek from app stores over the weekend over information safety issues.
The Chinese language app caused shockwaves within the AI world in January, wiping billions off international inventory markets over claims its new mannequin was educated at a a lot decrease price than US rivals similar to ChatGPT.
Since then, a number of international locations have warned that person information will not be correctly protected, and in February a US cybersecurity firm alleged potential data sharing between DeepSeek and ByteDance.
DeepSeek’s obvious in a single day influence noticed it shoot to the highest of App Retailer charts within the UK, US and plenty of different international locations world wide – though it now sits far under ChatGPT in UK rankings.
In South Korea, it had been downloaded over one million instances earlier than being pulled from Apple and Google’s App Shops on Saturday night.
Current customers can nonetheless entry the app and apply it to an online browser.
The information regulator, the Private Data Safety Fee (PIPC), informed South Korea’s Yonhap Information Company that regardless of discovering a hyperlink between DeepSeek and ByteDance, it was “but to substantiate what information was transferred and to what extent”.
Critics of the Chinese language state have lengthy argued its Nationwide Intelligence Regulation allows the government to entry any information it needs from Chinese language firms.
Nonetheless, ByteDance, headquartered in Beijing, is owned by numerous international traders – and others say the identical regulation permits for the safety of personal firms and private information.
Fears over person information being despatched to China was one of many causes the US Supreme Court docket upheld a ban on TikTok, which is owned by ByteDance.
The US ban is on hold until 5 April as President Donald Trump makes an attempt to dealer a decision.
Cybersecurity firm Safety Scorecard published a blog on DeepSeek on 10 February which urged “a number of direct references to ByteDance-owned” providers.
“These references recommend deep integration with ByteDance’s analytics and efficiency monitoring infrastructure,” it mentioned in its assessment of DeepSeek’s Android app.
Safety Scorecard expressed concern that together with privateness dangers, DeepSeek “person behaviour and system metadata [are] seemingly despatched to ByteDance servers”.
It additionally discovered information “being transmitted to domains linked to Chinese language state-owned entities”.
On Monday, South Korea’s PIPC said it “discovered site visitors generated by third-party information transfers and inadequate transparency in DeepSeek’s privateness coverage”.
It mentioned DeepSeek was cooperating with the regulator, and acknowledged it had didn’t to keep in mind South Korean privateness legal guidelines.
However the regulator suggested customers “train warning and keep away from getting into private info into the chatbot”.
South Korea has already adopted numerous international locations similar to Australia and Taiwan in banning DeepSeek from authorities gadgets.
The BBC has contacted the PIPC, ByteDance and DeepSeek’s guardian firm, Excessive Flyer, for a response.
