USA plans to ban Deepseek – Security researchers warn

In Australia and Taiwan, employees from public authorities and the critical infrastructure sector are already banned from using the Deepseek app. The reason for this is that there is a fear of a threat to national security. Now the USA is following suit. Members of parliament from all parties are to seek a similar ban.

Democratic MP Josh Gottheimer and his Republican colleague Darin LaHood have tabled the motion. The published document states that Deepseek is actually an "alarming threat to national security". In addition, investigations would show that the service has direct links to the Chinese government and that sensitive data of American citizens is being passed on.

Unlike in the case of Tiktok, for example, where a general ban on the service is under discussion, Deepseek is only to be used on official devices. However, the applicants still draw a comparison with the social media platform: "We have already seen China's approach (Playbook) with Tiktok, we cannot allow it again."

Sensitive data in the hands of China

Specifically, the MPs accuse Deepseek of sharing data with China Mobile, a company that belongs directly to the Chinese government (CCP) and is closely linked to the military. The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has therefore already banned the use of China Mobile in the USA.

However, Gottheimer and LaHood are apparently not only concerned about the data of government employees, as they also write: "The Americans pass on highly sensitive, protected information to DeepSeek – contracts, documents and financial records. In the wrong hands, this data is a huge asset for the CCP, a known foreign adversary." In addition, Chinese services would spread harmful disinformation and thereby also jeopardize national security.

The connection to China Mobile had previously been reported by a US security company – Feroot Security. They are said to have found code that shows that all data is being forwarded.

A further analysis is said to have revealed that Deepseek forwards all data to its own servers without encryption. There is not even a simple transport encryption. Nowsecure also claims that the data is routed via servers belonging to ByteDance, Tiktok's parent company.

It is clear that Deepseek comes with Chinese censorship. The chatbot does not answer questions about Tiananmen Square, for example, or at least not with information about the massacre that took place there. It is not possible to determine exactly what is subject to censorship and which answers can be attributed to the desirability of the government.

France and Italy have also expressed concerns about Deepseek's data protection. Italy's data protection authority also banned this service shortly after ChatGPT was launched. So they have already practiced there. And German data protection authorities also want to take a look at Deepseek. The Rhineland-Palatinate data protection officer Dieter Kugelmann said: "DeepSeek seems to lack pretty much everything in terms of data protection."

(emw)