New downloads of DeepSeek app suspended in South Korea due to lack of consideration for personal information protection law

South Korea's Personal Information Protection Commission (PIPC) has announced that it has determined that DeepSeek's handling of personal information and its communication functions with third-party businesses have 'certain deficiencies,' and has recommended that the DeepSeek app be temporarily removed from domestic app stores.

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https://www.pipc.go.kr/np/cop/bbs/selectBoardArticle.do?bbsId=BS074&mCode=C020010000&nttId=11007

South Korea blocks downloads of DeepSeek from local app stores | TechCrunch
https://techcrunch.com/2025/02/16/south-korea-blocks-downloads-of-deepseek-from-local-app-stores/

The Chinese AI company DeepSeek announced ' DeepSeek-R1 ', which has attracted attention because it has almost the same performance as OpenAI's inference model o1, but its development costs are only 3% of o1. Another point is that while OpenAI provides inference models such as o1 for a fee, DeepSeek-R1 is provided free of charge as an open model.

How did DeepSeek beat OpenAI's O1 at 3% of the cost? - GIGAZINE

However, DeepSeek stores all user data on servers in China, and Chinese companies are required to share data with intelligence agencies at the request of the government, which means there is a high risk of data leakage. As a result, many companies have reportedly banned the use of DeepSeek.

Hundreds of companies banned from using Chinese AI 'DeepSeek' due to data leakage risk - GIGAZINE

According to PIPC, after the DeepSeek app was launched in South Korea in late January 2025, PIPC contacted DeepSeek's headquarters in China and sent an official inquiry letter regarding the collection and processing of personal information.

As a result of the evaluation, PIPC determined that DeepSeek's third-party services and privacy policy were problematic. PIPC stated, 'As a result of our own analysis, we have confirmed some of the inadequacies in the third-party service and communication functions and personal information processing policy that have been pointed out by domestic and international media,' and temporarily blocked the DeepSeek app from app stores in Korea.

In South Korea, it has been reported that, following a notice from the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, access to DeepSeek from official devices of government-related organizations such as nuclear power plants and the Ministry of Defense was blocked on February 6, 2025.

According to a TechCrunch report to PIPC, the PIPC concluded from its investigation that 'DeepSeek was found to have transferred data of Korean users to TikTok's parent company, ByteDance.' This follows a similar finding made by security firm NowSecure in early February 2025.

DeepSeek's iOS app sends unencrypted data to ByteDance-controlled servers - GIGAZINE

According to the PIPC, DeepSeek only recently appointed a local agent in South Korea, and DeepSeek was not familiar with South Korea's personal information protection laws when it began providing its services. DeepSeek said it would cooperate closely with South Korean authorities.