After US, Italy and Taiwan, another country ban DeepSeek on government devices

DeepSeek is now banned in another country. After the US, Italy and Taiwan announced a ban on the The Chinese Al app, Australia has banned DeepSeek from all government devices. The ban stems from concerns that DeepSeek poses security risks.
According to a report by news agency Reuters, the country’s Department of Home Affairs issued a mandatory directive requiring all government entities to “prevent the use or installation of DeepSeek products, applications and web services and where found remove all existing instances of DeepSeek products, applications and web services from all Australian Government systems and devices,” according to a government statement.

What Australia said on security risks posed by DeepSeek

Australian home affairs minister Tony Burke stated that DeepSeek presented an “unacceptable risk” to government technology, and the immediate ban was implemented “to protect Australia’s national security and national interest”. The ban is limited to government devices and does not extend to the devices of private citizens.

DeepSeek's launch last month sent shockwaves through the global tech industry, as its AI models reportedly cost significantly less and require less powerful chips than those of its rivals. This development raised concerns about the substantial investments made by Western nations in chipmakers and data centers.
Despite the Chinese Al app DeepSeek gaining attention for outperforming OpenAI at a much lower cost, it raised security concerns due to reports of user data being collected and stored in China. This is due to the fact that Chinese law mandates all companies share data with the government upon request, raising fears about potential access to American user data by the country.
Australia's decision to ban DeepSeek follows a similar move by Italy, and other countries in Europe and elsewhere are also reportedly scrutinising the AI firm. Taiwan recently banned government departments from using DeepSeek as well.
This ban is not the first instance of the Australian government restricting the use of Chinese technology. Two years ago, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's government imposed a government-wide ban on the Chinese social media app TikTok due to security concerns.