South Korea watchdog to question DeepSeek over user data

Data watchdogs in South Korea and Ireland said Friday they would ask Chinese AI startup DeepSeek to clarify how it manages users' personal information, as governments from around the world turned a spotlight on the service.

DeepSeek launched its R1 chatbot this month, claiming it matches the capacity of artificial intelligence pace-setters in the United States for a fraction of the investment.

The news sparked a rout in tech titans -- Nvidia dived 17 percent Monday -- and raised questions about the hundreds of billions of dollars invested in AI in recent years.

But countries now including South Korea, Ireland, France, Australia and Italy have questions about DeepSeek's data practices.

"We intend to submit our request in writing as early as Friday to obtain information about how DeepSeek handles personal data," an official from South Korea's Personal Information Protection Commission told AFP, without giving further details.

Ireland's Data Protection Commission (DPC) told AFP it was "requesting information on the data processing conducted in relation to data subjects in Ireland" from DeepSeek.

The DPC is a lead European tech watchdog, as many major firms have their EU headquarters in Ireland due to Dublin's generous tax incentives.

-'Be very careful'-

Earlier this week Italy launched an investigation into the R1 model and blocked it from processing Italian users' data.

The Italian Data Protection Agency is asking what information is used to train DeepSeek's AI system and, if the data is scraped from the internet, how users are informed about the processing of their data.

French watchdog CNIL also said it would question DeepSeek about its chatbot "to better understand the way it works and the risks regarding data protection".

Australia's science minister Ed Husic has also raised privacy concerns over the company's AI service and urged users to think carefully before downloading it.

"There are a lot of questions that will need to be answered in time on quality, consumer preferences, data and privacy management," Husic told national broadcaster ABC.

"I would be very careful about that. These type of issues need to be weighed up carefully," he added.

The Italian watchdog in December fined OpenAI 15 million euros ($15.6 million) over the use of personal data by its popular ChatGPT chatbot, but the US tech firm said it would appeal.

Italy also temporarily blocked ChatGPT over privacy concerns in March 2023, becoming the first Western country to take such action.

DeepSeek has said it used less-advanced H800 chips -- permitted for sale to China until 2023 under US export controls -- to power its large learning model.

South Korean chip giants Samsung Electronics and SK hynix are key suppliers of advanced chips used in AI servers.

Worries about the impact of DeepSeek battered stocks in Seoul as the market reopened after an extended break Friday.

Samsung fell more than two percent, while SK hynix plunged almost 12 percent at one point.

But several industry leaders have welcomed DeepSeek's arrival and the injection of competition, while analysts have flagged the benefits of the shake-up.

© Agence France-Presse