Research revealed that DeepSeek may be sending user data to China Mobile, a state-owned telecom with ties to the Chinese military, raising national security concerns
Within just few days, Chinese AI bot DeepSeek shook the global artificial intelligence (AI) landscape like a storm. But its disruptive impact took a sharp turn when several countries looked at its possible negative consequences. From becoming the most downloaded mobile apps across 140 markets to facing bans in several nations, DeepSeek now finds itself at the crosshairs of regulators over data security concerns.
Italy became the first country in the world to ban DeepSeek, followed by Taiwan, Australia, South Korea, and India --- these countries have either fully or partially banned the use of Chinese AI bot. Some of them asked their government employees to avoid using DeepSeek, while others have extended the curbs to private citizens as well.
While speculations surfaced that DeepSeek could expose sensitive data collected by its AI chatbot to Beijing, the concerns now look credible as some researchers uncovered its link with Chinese company and the state military.
Security researchers revealed that DeepSeek has links with a Chinese telecommunications company that has been barred from operating its business in the United States. As per AP reports, the Chinese AI start-up has computer code capable of sending user login information to a state-owned telecom company. The login page of DeepSeek’s chatbot contains a complicated computer code. When researchers decoded it, they found links to China Mobile’s state-owned telecom company computer systems. This code seems to be a part of the account creation and logging into DeepSeek process.
The findings should not surprise users because it has already mentioned in its privacy policy that the data is being stored on servers inside China. “The personal information we collect from you may be stored on a server located outside of the country where you live. We store the information we collect in secure servers located in the People’s Republic of China,” the policy reads.
But the report disclosed more direct connection between DeepSeek and China Mobile. This association raises further question on data security as the US claimed that China Mobile has close ties with the Chinese military. The US Federal Communications Commission has earlier said the links between China Mobile and the Chinese state pose “substantial” national security concerns.
Even in 2021, the Biden administration restricted Americans from investing in China Mobile after the Pentagon revealed its connections with the Chinese military.
The Canadian cybersecurity company, Feroot Security, and news agency The Associated Press were involved in revealing these findings about DeepSeek and China Mobile. Initially, Feroot Security discovered the code which appears to capture detailed information about the device a user logs in from --- a process called fingerprinting. Then AP took it forward to other computer experts and independently confirmed about the code’s presence. The analysis only applies to the web version of DeepSeek as the researchers did not analyse the mobile version.
“It’s mindboggling that we are unknowingly allowing China to survey Americans and we’re doing nothing about it. It’s hard to believe that something like this was accidental. There are so many unusual things to this,” said Feroot CEO Ivan Tsarynny as quoted by AP.
The security expert also indicated that personal and proprietary information could be exposed, while comparing it with TikTok which is a video-sharing platform for entertainment purpose. However, DeepSeek is an AI-based software company whose open-source LLM is trained on OpenAI’s data. Hence, unlike TikTok, Feroot said DeepSeek is sharing information that could be highly personal and sensitive related to businesses.