South Korean data protection regulators have confirmed that Chinese chatbot DeepSeek was sharing users’ personal data with TikTok-owner ByteDance.
Following an investigation, South Korea’s Personal Information Protection Commission (PIPC) has officially confirmed that DeepSeek was sharing data with ByteDance. The decision comes a day after the commission announced that it had suspended new downloads of the app due to privacy concerns. The company has appointed a legal representative in South Korea and admitted that it had partially ignored local laws. However, the extent and nature of the data transfer is still unclear. Under South Korean law, transferring personal data to third parties without the user’s express consent is illegal. As a result of the breach, new downloads of DeepSeek were temporarily blocked in South Korea. By the time the app was blocked, it had been downloaded over 1 million times.
In January 2025, Italian regulator Garante blocked the chatbot due to its questionable privacy policy. This highlights growing concerns about the data processing of Chinese technology companies. Critics have long argued that Chinese national security laws allow the government to access any data held by companies during investigations. However, it is worth noting that the United States has a similar mechanism that requires companies to cooperate with law enforcement when necessary.
The fact that DeepSeek’s data was transferred to ByteDance raises questions about the transparency of how users’ personal data is processed. Regulators in various countries are increasingly restricting the activities of Chinese AI companies, citing privacy threats. If DeepSeek does not change its data collection and storage policies, similar bans could be imposed in other countries.
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