Australia has officially banned the use of DeepSeek on all government devices, citing an “unacceptable level of security risk” posed by the Chinese artificial intelligence program, according to a directive issued on Tuesday.
“After reviewing threat and risk analysis, I have determined that the use of DeepSeek products, applications, and web services presents an unacceptable security risk to the Australian Government,” said Stephanie Foster, Secretary of the Department of Home Affairs, in the official order.
Effective Wednesday, all non-corporate Commonwealth entities must “identify and remove all existing instances” of DeepSeek products, applications, and web services from Australian government systems and mobile devices. The directive also mandates that access to, use of, or installation of DeepSeek services be blocked across government networks.
This move is part of a growing global trend of governments scrutinizing the services of the Chinese startup. DeepSeek raised alarms last month when it claimed its new R1 chatbot matched the capabilities of leading US AI systems, but at a significantly lower cost.
Countries including South Korea, Ireland, France, Italy, and Australia have voiced concerns over DeepSeek’s data handling practices, particularly regarding the collection and use of personal data, and the transparency of the information used to train its AI models.
AFP