A top regulator in Germany asked Google and Apple on Friday to remove Chinese AI startup DeepSeek from their app stores of their country as a consequence of data privacy concerns.
Meike Kamp, Germany’s data protection commissioner, said in an announcement that DeepSeek’s transfer of German user data to servers based in China was “illegal.”
“DeepSeek has not been in a position to provide my agency with convincing evidence that German users’ data is protected in China to a level similar to that within the European Union,” Kamp said in an announcement.
“Chinese authorities have far-reaching access rights to non-public data throughout the sphere of influence of Chinese corporations,” she added.
Kamp advised the 2 Big Tech giants to review her request promptly and choose whether to ban the DeepSeek app, though her office didn’t set a deadline. She noted that DeepSeek had not complied with requests to satisfy the European Union’s data privacy standards.
Representatives for Apple and Google didn’t immediately return a request for comment.
DeepSeek exploded onto the scene in January and briefly caused a serious tech stock selloff after it released an AI model that it claimed to have trained at a fraction of the price of rivals like OpenAI’s ChatGPT – and without access to probably the most advanced computer chips.
As The Post has reported, DeepSeek’s own terms of service disclose that user data is stored “in secure servers positioned within the People’s Republic of China” – posing the identical national security risk that led Congress to crack down on ByteDance-owned TikTok.
The corporate also says it routinely collects data on personal information comparable to “device model, operating system, keystroke patterns or rhythms, IP address, and system language.”
In March, the Wall Street Journal reported that the Trump administration was “likely” to ban the DeepSeek app from government devices.
Elsewhere, Latest York state has already instituted a ban from government devices and networks as a consequence of “serious concerns” over data privacy and censorship risks.
In Europe, Italy has blocked DeepSeek from its app stores. The Netherlands nixed it from government devices.
With Post wires
