DeepSeek has been blocked in Italy due to concerns over potential data leaks.

The Italian Data Protection Authority (Garante per la protezione dei dati personali) has urgently restricted the processing of data of Italian users by Chinese companies providing the DeepSeek service. The reason is a potential threat of data leakage.

This was reported by RBK-Ukraine citing the Garante website.

It is reported that Garante has submitted a request to the Chinese companies Hangzhou DeepSeek Artificial Intelligence and Beijing DeepSeek Artificial Intelligence, which offer the DeepSeek chatbot service. The regulator inquired about the purpose of data collection and whether the data is stored in China.

In response, Garante launched an investigation, and the app has disappeared from digital stores in Italy.

DeepSeek

DeepSeek claims that less than $6 million was spent on their model, which is significantly cheaper than the $100 million required by Western competitors.

It is worth noting that earlier, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella stated that he does not see a threat from the use of DeepSeek. He believes that the proliferation of AI is good news.

However, Microsoft and OpenAI are investigating whether OpenAI's technologies were stolen by a group linked to DeepSeek. Microsoft’s security team has observed that individuals potentially associated with DeepSeek were extracting large volumes of data using OpenAI or its API.