The Chinese AI assistant has been removed from local app stores after it was accused of sending data to TikTok owner ByteDance.
South Korea’s national data protection regulator has accused the creators of Chinese AI service DeepSeek of sharing user data with TikTok owner ByteDance, the Yonhap news agency reported on Tuesday.
Earlier this week, Seoul’s Personal Information Protection Commission (PIPC) announced that access to the DeepSeek chatbot had been “temporarily” suspended in the country pending a review of the data collection practices of the Chinese startup behind the AI. DeepSeek’s apps were removed from local app stores as part of the suspension, while access to the web service has been blocked since Saturday.
In a statement shared by Yonhap, the PIPC stated that it has “confirmed DeepSeek communicating with ByteDance” but noted that it is still unclear “what data was transferred and to what extent.”
As noted by the outlet, South Korean law requires explicit user consent for the transfer of personal information to a third party.
In response to the allegations, DeepSeek announced that it has assigned a special representative in South Korea and admitted shortcomings in considering local data protection laws. The startup has vowed to actively cooperate with South Korean authorities to resolve the issue.
The Hangzhou-based DeepSeek triggered a tech ‘arms race’ in January by releasing an open-source version of its reasoning AI model, R1, which it claims was developed at a significantly lower cost while delivering performance comparable to competitors such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Unlike its American rival, the Chinese chatbot is also freely accessible and does not require a subscription, which has helped it quickly become the most downloaded app on Apple’s and Google’s stores.
Image credit: Solen Feyissa
