The Trump administration is considering banning the Chinese AI chatbot DeepSeek from U.S. government devices due to national security concerns. Officials are troubled by DeepSeek's data collection practices, including the storage of user data on Chinese servers, which could be accessed by the Chinese government. Potential measures include banning the app from government devices, removing it from U.S. app stores, and restricting U.S. cloud service providers from offering DeepSeek's AI models.
These discussions follow actions by other countries, such as Italy, South Korea, Australia, Canada, and Taiwan, which have already banned DeepSeek on government devices over similar security concerns.
The U.S. Navy has already instructed its members not to use DeepSeek due to "security and ethical concerns," and a bipartisan bill to ban the app from government devices has been introduced, though it has not yet advanced.
This situation underscores the ongoing tensions and regulatory challenges related to Chinese technology companies' presence in the U.S. and globally.