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Germany’s data protection commissioner has asked Google and Apple to remove DeepSeek from its app stores as its developer fails to provide adequate proof of data protection.
Germany looks to be the latest country to ban Chinese AI platform DeepSeek after it failed to comply with requests to prove that personal data shared on the platform has levels of protection similar to that provided by the European Union.
Germany’s data protection commissioner asked DeepSeek in May to either meet the requirements for non-EU data transfers – personal data entered into DeepSeek is stored on networks in China – or remove its app from circulation.
DeepSeek failed to reply to the request, and now, the commissioner has asked Apple and Google to remove the app from their respective app stores in Germany.
“DeepSeek has not been able to provide my agency with convincing evidence that German users’ data is protected in China to a level equivalent to that in the European Union,” commissioner Meike Kamp said in a statement late last week.
“Chinese authorities have far-reaching access rights to personal data within the sphere of influence of Chinese companies.”
Governments across Australia have enacted their own bans on the platform, citing similar concerns. Italy has already blacked the app, with the Belgian government charting a similar course to Australia’s. Similarly, Microsoft has banned its employees from using DeepSeek.
However, according to Alastair Paterson, CEO and co-founder of AI data protection company Harmonic Security, DeepSeek is just the tip of the iceberg.
“Last quarter, Harmonic found that 7.95 per cent of employees in the average enterprise used at least one Chinese GenAI tool. And it’s not just DeepSeek – employees are using other tools like Manus, Kimi Moonshot, Manus, Baidu Chat, and Qwen,” Paterson told Cyber Daily.
“There are good reasons why people will want to use Chinese apps because the country (like the US) is becoming an AI powerhouse, and some are even ahead of OpenAI. There is a huge ‘BUT’, however – companies should presume that any information their employees choose to put in the apps will become property of the Chinese Communist Party.”
Bans, Paterson said, are not the only answer to problematic AI use – education is the key.
“Any ban will take time and might even then be ineffective – there are always ways around it. Better, and more immediately, organisations need to educate employees that no sensitive information at all should be put into China-based apps and take technology steps to screen and block any confidential data going into them – the tools are available,” he said.
David Hollingworth has been writing about technology for over 20 years, and has worked for a range of print and online titles in his career. He is enjoying getting to grips with cyber security, especially when it lets him talk about Lego.
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