Italy bans China's DeepSeek AI over data use concerns

Jan. 31 (UPI) -- Italy's digital information watchdog called for the government to block DeepSeek, China's new artificial intelligence chatbot after it said its company failed to turn over operation information to regulators.

Italy's Data Protection Authority ordered Hangzhou DeepSeek Artificial Intelligence and Beijing DeepSeek Artificial Intelligence on Thursday to stop processing data of Italians immediately. Italian authorities said it has started an investigation into the companies.

"The limitation measure -- adopted to protect the data of Italian users -- follows the communication from the [Chinese] companies received today, the content of which was deemed completely insufficient," the authority said in a translated statement.

"Contrary to what the authority found, the companies declared that they do not operate in Italy and that European legislation does not apply to them."

DeepSeek AI is China's entry into the artificial intelligence market to go head-to-head with OpenAI's ChatGPT, Gemini by Google and other leading AI services.

Italy demanded more information on DeepSeek along with Ireland earlier this week. The Irish Data Protection Commission told Tech Crunch it sent a note to DeepSeek requesting data over data it is collecting.

The European Commission's spokesperson for Tech Sovereignty Thomas Regnier warned DeepSeek about operating in Europe but said it was too soon to call for a probe.

"The [DeepSeek] services offered in Europe will respect our rules," Regnier said earlier this week, according to TechCrunch. "These are very early stages. I'm not talking about an investigation yet. Our framework is solid enough to tackle potential issues if they are here."