The jury is still out of whether the Chinese AI upstart Deepseek is a change game or possibly part of a complicated plan from the parent company of Hedge Fund to short Nvidia and other technological reserves. Whatever it is (maybe both?), Deepseek and the big language model has made some big waves. Now, it attracts the eye of data protection observers.
What seems to be the first major move by such an observer, since Deepseek has positively viral in recent days, Euroconsumers, a Consumer Coalition in Europe, with the Italian Data Protection Authority filed a complaint about how Deepseek handles personal data in the relationship to GdprThe data protection framework in Europe.
THE Italian DPA confirmed today that he then wrote to Deepseek with a request for information. “A rischio I di di milioni di persone in Italy,” he notes. (“Data of millions of Italians are at risk.”) Deepseek has 20 days to respond.
A key detail for Deepseek that many observe that the service is done and operates from China. In his own privacyIncludes the information and data he collects and Deepseek stores, which are also housed in his home country.
Deepseek also briefly notes in its policy that when it transfers data to China from the country where Deepseek is used, it does “in accordance with the requirements of applicable data protection laws”.
But Euroconsumers – the organization that brought a successful case against Grok Last year on how he used data to train AI – and the Italian DPA wants more details.
Treating the artificial intelligence of Hangzhou Deepseek and Beijing Artificial Intelligence, the Italian DPA has said that it wants to find out what personal data is collected, from which sources and for which purposes – including the information used to train the AI system – together With the legal base is for processing. It also wants more details about these servers in China.
In addition, she writes in her request, she wants to know “if personal data is collected through tissue scraping activities” how users who are “registered and those who have not registered with the service have been informed or up to date on processing their data. ”
The news store Thief He notes that Euroconsumers also emphasized that there are no details on how Deepseek protects or limits minors to its services, from age verification to how it handles minors.
(Deepseek’s age policy notes that it is not intended for users under the age of 18, although it does not provide a way to impose this. For those aged between 14 and 18 Personal data with an adult.)
Consumer groups and the Italian guard are the first to make a move against Deepseek. They may not be the last, although tracking may not be so fast.
Earlier today, Deepseek was a primary issue at a press conference with the European Commission. Thomas Regnier, a spokesman for the technical sovereignty committee, was asked if there were concerns at European level in relation to Deepseek related to security, privacy and censorship. However, the main message was: It’s too early to say anything about any surveys.
“Services offered in Europe will respect our rules”, regnier famousadding that AI law applies to all AI services offered in the area.
He refused to say whether Deepseek, during the EU assessment, respected these rules or not. It was then asked if the censorship of the application on matters that are politically sensitive to China fell from the rules of freedom of speech in Europe and if this is worth a research. “These are very early stages. I’m not talking about research yet,” Regnier quickly said answer. “Our frame is stable enough to address potential issues if they are here.”
We have contacted Deepseek about the Italian DPA complaint and we will update this post as more information will be made available.
