‘DeepSeek not been able to provide...’: German Federal agency pushes Google, Apple to remove China’s AI service, gives warning of...

One of the two big tech companies of the United States, Google and Apple, have been warned of users’ data leak as a top German privacy regulator warns the two about the illegal content on Chinese AI service DeepSeek, which is available on their app stores and exposes users’ data to Chinese authorities. The warning came after DeepSeek ignored an official request by...in May to make its app safe or remove it from app stores in Germany when collecting local users’ data and transmitting it to China, said Berlin data protection commissioner Meike Kamp in a statement on Friday. 

“DeepSeek users don’t have enforceable rights and effective legal remedies available to them in China, like they’re guaranteed in the European Union,” A report by Bloomberg read. 

DeepkSeek’s big claims  

DeepSeek, which is based in Hangzhou, stunned the world with its announcement regarding its R1 large language model, which it claimed could beat the bigger US systems at a much lower cost. The Chinese AI startup also claimed that that it can easily rival other competitions in the industry, leaders like OpenAI and Google. At the time of DeepSeek’s launch, it claimed that it in only two months and under USD 6 million it built an AI model with Nvidia's less-advanced H800 chips. 

According to its own privacy policy, DeepSeek stores numerous personal data, such as requests to its AI programme or uploaded files, on computers in China. 

“DeepSeek has not been able to provide my agency with convincing evidence that German users' data is protected in China to a level equivalent to that in the European Union. Chinese authorities have far-reaching access rights to personal data within the sphere of influence of Chinese companies,” Kamp said. 

Italy blocked it from app stores there earlier this year, citing a lack of information on its use of personal data, while the Netherlands has banned it on government devices. US lawmakers plan to introduce a bill that would ban US executive agencies from using any AI models developed in China. According to a report by Reuters, DeepSeek is aiding China's military and intelligence operations.