DeepSeek Dangers Expand as More Security Concerns Surface
By Movieguide® Contributor
This week, South Korea’s data protection regulator accused Chinese AI chat platform DeepSeek of sending data to ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company.
“We confirmed DeepSeek communicating with ByteDance,” an official from South Korea’s Personal Information Protection Commission (PIPC) said. They are “yet to confirm what data was transferred and to what extent.”
DeepSeek purportedly admitted “shortcomings in considering local protection laws” and expressed willingness to cooperate.
Most countries are suspicious of the new AI platform. Italy, France, Germany, Taiwan, the US and Australia are a few that have been vocal about it.
On Feb. 7, US representatives Josh Gottheimer and Darin LaHood, who serve on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, introduced the No DeepSeek on Government Devices Act (HR 1121). Rep. Gottheimer stated, “We have deeply disturbing evidence that [the Chinese Communist Party (“CCP”) is] using DeepSeek to steal the sensitive data of U.S. citizens,” adding DeepSeek is “a five-alarm national security fire.” Rep. LaHood said, “Under no circumstances can we allow a CCP company to obtain sensitive government or personal data.”
The “deeply disturbing evidence” Gottheimer mentioned hasn’t been specified yet.
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All of DeepSeek’s users’ data is stored on Chinese servers. DeepSeek’s privacy policy says it will “comply with our legal obligations, or as necessary to perform tasks in the public interest, or to protect the vital interests of our users and other people.”
ByteDance claims the connection with DeepSeek is due to it using servers that are owned by ByteDance, but that “does not mean it has access to DeepSeek data.”
However, SecurityScorecard recently found “integration with ByteDance‘s services” in DeepSeek’s code.
“The analysis of the extracted codebase reveals multiple direct references to ByteDance–owned libraries, services, and telemetry frameworks, including ApmInsight, SlardarConfigManager, and WebViewMonitorHelper,” SecurityScorecard reported. “These references suggest deep integration with ByteDance’s analytics and performance monitoring infrastructure.”
As for data sharing, hopefully, South Korea’s investigation will make the truth clear.
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