South Korea Spy Agency Says DeepSeek Excessively Collects Personal Data

South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) has accused the Chinese AI app DeepSeek of excessively collecting personal data. The NIS sent an official notice to government agencies, urging them to take security precautions. DeepSeek collects keyboard input patterns, which can identify individuals and communicate with Chinese servers.

Some South Korean government ministries have blocked access to the app due to security concerns. Australia and Taiwan have also raised warnings or imposed restrictions on DeepSeek. The NIS highlighted that DeepSeek gives advertisers unlimited access to user data and stores South Korean users’ data in Chinese servers. Under Chinese law, the Chinese government could access this information.

DeepSeek provided different answers to sensitive questions in different languages. For example, it claimed kimchi originated from China when asked in Chinese, but said it was a Korean dish when asked in Korean. The NIS also noted that DeepSeek censored responses to political questions like the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown.