South Korea Removes DeepSeek from App Stores Due to Privacy Concerns

seoul, south korea - South Korean authorities temporarily remove Chinese chatbot DeepSeek from app stores over privacy issues.

South Korea Takes Action Against DeepSeek

The Chinese chatbot DeepSeek has been temporarily removed from app stores by South Korean data protection authorities. The Personal Information Protection Commission (PIPC) announced that the service will resume once improvements are made to comply with the country's privacy laws. The measure, effective as of Saturday, aims to block new downloads of the app, while the web version remains accessible nationwide.

Earlier this month, access to DeepSeek was blocked on work computers by the South Korean government. This action followed the Chinese AI startup's failure to respond to a request from South Korea's data watchdog for insight into user information management. South Korea's intelligence agency NIS also warned about DeepSeek's extensive collection of personal user data, raising concerns about advertisers potentially accessing user information and data being stored on servers in China, potentially granting the Chinese government access to the data.