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Australia has banned Chinese AI program DeepSeek from all government devices, citing an "unacceptable level of security risk," according to an official order released Tuesday. The DeepSeek chatbot, developed by a China-based startup, has quickly gained attention for its capabilities, even disrupting financial markets since its launch last month.
Countries including South Korea, Italy and France have expressed concerns about the program's security and data practices. But Canberra's move overnight appears to be the toughest by a government against the Chinese chatbot.
"After considering threat and risk analysis, I have determined that the use of DeepSeek products, applications and web services poses an unacceptable level of security risk to the Australian Government," Department of Home Affairs Secretary Stephanie Foster said in the directive. As of Wednesday all non-corporate Commonwealth entities must "identify and remove all existing instances of DeepSeek products, applications and web services on all Australian Government systems and mobile devices," she added.
The directive also required that "access, use or installation of DeepSeek products" be prevented across government systems and mobile devices. The action is the latest by governments from around the world which have been turning a spotlight on the services of the Chinese startup.
DeepSeek raised alarms last month when it claimed its new R1 chatbot matches the capacity of artificial intelligence pace-setters in the United States for a fraction of the cost. It particularly has sent Silicon Valley into a frenzy, with some calling its high performance and supposed low cost a wake-up call for US developers. Some experts have accused DeepSeek of reverse-engineering the capabilities of leading US technology, such as the AI powering ChatGPT.
Several countries now including South Korea, Ireland, France, Australia and Italy have expressed concern about DeepSeek's data practices, including how it handles personal data and what information is used to train DeepSeek's AI system.
