Italy’s data protection agency Garante said on Thursday that it has ordered its chatbots in the country after Chinese artificial intelligence startups failed to address regulators’ concerns about their privacy policies.
The supervisory authority asked DeepSeek this week about its use of personal data, especially seeking information to collect what personal data, which sources, what purposes are used for, what legal basis, and whether it is stored in China.
Watchdog said in a statement that Garante’s orders were designed to protect data from Italian users – information provided by Chinese companies that provide DeepSeek Chatbot services “is considered completely inadequate”.
DeepSeek did not comment immediately.
The Chinese startup said its newly launched AI model is better than the US’s leading model, which has the potential to frustrate the technological world order.
Its AI assistant has been competent for competitor Chatgpt, becoming the highest free application available on the US Apple App Store.
Garrant added that its orders had “immediate effect” and also investigated.
European Review
Data regulators in Ireland and France have also questioned the privacy policies of their chatbots.
In response to Garante’s questions, DeepSeek said it had removed its AI assistant from the Italian app store after questioning its privacy policy, one of four members of the Italian Data Authority’s board of directors, Agostino Ghiglia told REUTERS.
Ghiglia said DeepSeek added that it should not be subject to local regulations or Garante jurisdiction and is not obliged to provide any information to regulators.
“The DeepSeek’s reaction not only did not give us any reassurance, but also made their position worse, which is why we decided to order the block,” Ghiglia said.
He added: “If there is no cooperation, DeepSeek will continue to be blocked in Italy.”
As of Friday, some Italian users who previously downloaded the app on their mobile devices said the chatbots are still providing answers. The web version of the service is still running.
“Citizens have the right to obtain their consent based on your data or data you do not do. Chinese servers do not provide guarantees of Europe,” Ghiglia said.
Garante, Italy, is one of the most active of the 31 data protection authorities in Europe. Two years ago, it briefly banned the use of Microsoft-backed Chatgpt instead of suspected violations of EU privacy rules.
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