BERLIN: The data protection commissioner for the city-state of Berlin, Meike Kamp, believes that DeepSeek, the Chinese large language model (LLM) artificial intelligence company, is in breach of European law and should be removed from app stores.
The Berlin data protection authority has reported the app to Apple and Google for “illegal content” calling on the US giants to check its report and decide whether or not to block DeepSeek.
South Korean, Italian, Taiwanese and Australian authorities are already acting on DeepSeek.
Kamp accuses DeepSeek of transferring users’ personal data to China in contravention of the law, namely Europe’s 2016 General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
DeepSeek has been unable to show convincingly that German users’ data were protected in China to the same level as in the European Union, the Berlin authority believes.
“Chinese authorities have far-reaching rights of access to personal data within the area of influence of Chinese companies,” it says.
Kamp is empowered to act, as DeepSeek does not have a branch in Europe, which would be subject to its local data protection authority.
While there is no federal ban in the United States, NASA and the US Defense Department have banned their employees from using the app. States like Texas have banned it on state devices, and there are legislative proposals for a complete ban.
DeepSeek caused an earthquake in the AI sector after achieving comparable or better results than its Western counterparts at a fraction of the costs.
At the beginning of the year, DeepSeek topped the free apps in the iPhone app store in the US.
The implications of the Berlin authority’s move for Apple and Google remain unclear. – dpa