Key Takeaways
1. Deepseek has been prohibited in Italy, and German officials are taking action to remove it from Google and Apple’s platforms.
2. Allegations include violations of EU data protection laws, particularly regarding user data transfer to China without adequate safeguards.
3. The app collects sensitive user information, raising concerns about potential access by Chinese authorities.
4. The Berlin data protection authority may impose fines of up to 4% of Deepseek’s global revenue, but enforcement against a foreign entity is challenging.
5. The request to block Deepseek follows a previous warning to halt data transfers, and while it may be removed from app stores, it will still be accessible via web browsers.
Deepseek has been prohibited in Italy, and now German data protection officials are taking action against the widely-used AI application from China. According to Der Spiegel, the Berlin Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information has filed a complaint with both Google and Apple, formally asking them to remove the Deepseek app from their platforms, making it unavailable to users in Germany.
Allegations of Data Violations
The basis for this request is purported violations of data protection laws, particularly concerning the transfer of user data from Europe to China. The company has not presented adequate proof that user data is safeguarded in China in a similar way as it is in Europe. According to the EU’s GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation), protecting user data is a fundamental requirement for its transfer to nations outside the EU. However, this does not ensure that other Chinese firms or the Chinese government cannot access data from European users.
Concerns Over User Data
This situation is particularly alarming because the chatbot app gathers a wide variety of potentially sensitive information about its users, such as text inputs, chat histories, uploaded files, location details, and device data. Chinese authorities may potentially gain access to all this information, which is already in the possession of the state for all domestic businesses.
Possible Penalties and Future Actions
The Berlin data protection authority has the option to impose a fine that could reach up to 4% of the company’s worldwide revenue. Nonetheless, as officials have indicated, enforcing this against a foreign entity would be a challenging task. It is worth noting that this action did not come without prior warning; in May, Berlin’s data protection officials had already set a deadline for the company to halt data transfers to China. Since the Deepseek developers failed to meet this deadline, the request for blocking has been made under the Digital Services Act. Apple and Google are now required to make a decision regarding the blocking very soon. However, the model will still remain accessible through web browsers in the future.
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