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Italy Blocks Chinese Chatbot DeepSeek

The Italian regulator has blocked a Chinese application with integrated expert system DeepSeek.

This was reported by the local regulator Garante.

The emergency order entered into impact right away to secure the individual information of Italians.

The decision comes 2 days after Italy sent a request about how DeepSeek uses users’ individual data. The asked what data is gathered, why, and whether it is saved in China. However, the Chinese company’s reaction was considered “completely insufficient”. They stated they do not operate in Italy which European law does not apply to them.

The DeepSeek app has been missing out on from digital stores in Italy since January 29. The web version, nevertheless, remained offered – and it is still readily available today.

The Italian newspaper la Repubblica composes that the main page of DeepSeek states that usersʼ individual data is saved on servers in China, the material of chats with the bot can be used to train its algorithms, and the service needs to not be used by children under 14. However, the Italian regulator asked for additional information, which it did not get.

What is DeepSeek?

On January 27, DeepSeek surpassed ChatGPT to end up being the most popular totally free app on the App Store. On the very same day, the Chinese chatbot went through a large-scale cyberattack.

DeepSeek was founded in 2023 by Liang Wenfeng, a 40-year-old graduate of the School of Information and Electronic Engineering. He established a shop for Nvidia A100 chips, which are now prohibited from being exported to China. Media reports suggest that this may have prompted him to introduce DeepSeek, combining those chips with more affordable, lower-end ones that are still available for import.

DeepSeek is based on the open-source DeepSeek-V3 model. Some experts say that the design was developed for less than $6 million – rivals invest a lot more. However, other specialists dispute this info.