Gov't blocks employee access to DeepSeek's AI app
At least three Korean government agencies - Ministry of National Defense, Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy and Ministry of Foreign Affairs - have blocked access to DeepSeek's AI app on office computers due to due to security concerns.
Multiple local media outlets reported the decision late Wednesday as similar actions take place in other countries like Italy.
The restriction follows a guideline issued Tuesday by the Ministry of the Interior and Safety on the use of generative AI services. However, the guideline did not specify any particular services by name.
Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power (KHNP), the state-run operator of Korea’s nuclear and hydroelectric plants, uploaded a company-wide notice titled “Chinese AI service DeepSeek is banned” on Feb. 1.
KHNP had also prohibited employees from using ChatGPT for work-related tasks due to security issues surrounding the nuclear plants.
“The use of generative AI services for work tasks is banned to prevent leakage of company documents and personal information. We are not banning personal use, only use in a work environment,” KHNP said in the notice.
Firms like Kakao, the operator of Korea’s dominant messenger app, are banning employees from using DeepSeek's R1 due to concerns that its latest open-source reasoning model is collecting “excessive amounts of information for AI training,” Yonhap reported Wednesday.
Kakao, which recently signed a partnership deal with OpenAI, sent out a company-wide notice to prohibiting “the use of DeepSeek for company-related tasks.”
The tech firm is the first major tech company to implement such a ban.
The decision was made due to security issues related to DeepSeek's's collection of users’ appliance information, intellectual property (IP) and keystroke dynamics, Kakao reasoned.
LG U+ also sent out a notice on Wednesday prohibiting employees from using DeepSeek's flagship model on the company's network due to security issues.
The notice also cautions workers against using DeepSeek on their personal computers until it is cleared to be safe for use. LG U+ also asked that employees refrain from putting important or sensitive information in queries.
The company’s server, does not allow access to the DeepSeek app, including for cloud tasks, as its domain has been suspended.
Naver is reportedly also considering forbidding employees from using DeepSeek for company tasks but has not issued a formal notice yet.
Ha Jung-woo, head of Naver’s Future AI Center, expressed his concerns about DeepSeek on social media in late January, after the Chinese startup released its latest large language model.
“Information about used equipment as well as keystroke patterns and rhythm, IP information and device IDs are saved to servers in China by default, not to mention the cookies,” Ha wrote.
Large firms like Samsung Electronics, SK Telecom and LG Electronics use proprietary generative AI models, and their company PCs block access for non-approved external programs.
Countries around the world are wary of DeepSeek, and their governments have been responding to the company's recent release on a state level.
Australia, Japan, Taiwan and the U.S. state of Texas have banned the use of the company's technology on government-owned devices while Italy has blocked it completely on app markets.
Britain and countries that are part of the European Union are also closely monitoring the China-developed technology.
Generative AI regulations are currently being fiercely debated in Korea. The Personal Information Protection Committee sent a formal request to DeepSeek to answer how, and in which categories, the company collects, stores and manages personal information.