DeepSeek temporarily removed from app stores in South Korea

The Personal Information Protection Commission (PIPC) has decided to suspend the availability of DeepSeek’s app in app stores in South Korea.

Since last Saturday, South Korean users can no longer download the Chinese AI chatbot DeepSeek via Google’s Play Store or Apple’s App Store.

According to South Korea’s data protection authority (DPA), the Chinese startup company currently fails to meet the country’s data protection and privacy rules. DeepSeek has announced that it wants to improve its service to comply with South Korea’s laws.

Once improvements have been made, DeepSeek will return to both the Play Store and App Store. Till that time, South Korean users are designated to DeepSeek’s online web services, which remain available.

Earlier this month, the South Korean government decided to ban DeepSeek from being used by civil servants due to security concerns. The National Intelligence Service (NIS) conducted an investigation and concluded that the Chinese startup ‘excessively’ collects personal data to train its AI chatbot.

“Unlike other generative AI services, it collects keyboard input patterns that can identify individuals, and includes the ability to communicate with Chinese company servers so that chat histories can be transmitted,” South Korea’s chief intelligence agency said in a statement.

In addition, retention periods aren’t specified in DeepSeek’s privacy policies, meaning that users’ personal information can permanently be shared with advertisers. And since all data is stored on servers located in China, Beijing has access to this information.

More and more countries are banning the Chinese AI chatbot due to privacy and security concerns. The Garante per la Protezione dei Dati Personali (GPDP), Italy’s privacy regulator, was the first DPA to ban DeepSeek to protect users’ data. Countries like Australia and Taiwan did the same.

DPAs from Belgium, France, Ireland, Luxemburg and the Netherlands have launched investigations into DeepSeek’s privacy practices and are recommending citizens not to share sensitive data with the Chinese chatbot.