South Korea has decided to suspend the use of the Chinese Artificial Intelligence (AI) application DeepSeek, as reported by Efe. The South Korean government does so due to doubts about the data collection system, which is stored on servers in China, and the possibility of sensitive information leakage. Meanwhile, China urged not to "politicize" technological matters and hopes "that the concerned countries avoid taking measures that exceed the concept of security," said Guo Jiakun, a spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The Personal Information Protection Commission of South Korea (PIP) stated on Monday that the service was suspended at 6:00 p.m. local time on Saturday (9:00 GMT) and will resume after "improvements" are made in accordance with South Korea's personal information protection laws.
This action comes after the PIPC issued an official warning about the Chinese AI model, advising against its use, and after local ministries and government agencies blocked its use.
The warning came after the PIPC sent an inquiry to the startup requesting detailed information about its data collection policy and stated that it plans to seek cooperation from Chinese authorities on the matter through official diplomatic channels.
In parallel, the South Korean automaker Hyundai Motor had already restricted its employees' access to DeepSeek, also due to potential data leaks.
Two weeks ago, the South Korean ministries of Finance and Environment announced the temporary blocking of DeepSeek, joining the ministries of Foreign Affairs, National Defense, and Economy, Trade, and Industry, which prevented connections to this Chinese language model from their terminals.
The Ministry of the Interior had already advised ministries and the country's 17 regional governments to exercise caution due to possible data leaks from using DeepSeek, considering the Chinese startup's data storage process to be opaque.
DeepSeek has revolutionized the global AI landscape after unveiling its latest language model last month, impressing experts with its more efficient and cost-effective performance compared to American competitors.
However, its data management has led countries like Italy or Australia to further analyze the service and impose access restrictions on public institutions citing risks to national security.