Canada has banned the Chinese artificial intelligence application DeepSeek from government devices over “serious privacy concerns,” aligning with similar restrictions introduced by allied nations.
Chief Information Officer of Canada Dominic Rochon announced the Chinese chatbot ban in a Feb. 6 email directive to federal departments, noting that the measure has already been implemented by Shared Services Canada, which manages government IT infrastructure.
“Due to serious privacy concerns associated with the inappropriate collection and retention of sensitive personal information, and as a precautionary measure to protect government networks and data, it is recommended that departments and agencies restrict the use of the DeepSeek chatbot on government devices,” stated the email obtained by The Epoch Times.
Other countries have implemented or are considering similar restrictions on DeepSeek.
On Feb. 6, U.S. lawmakers introduced a bipartisan bill aimed at prohibiting the download and use of the Chinese app on government devices. Republican Representative Darin LaHood and Democratic Representative Josh Gottheimer, who co-sponsored the bill, both expressed concerns about DeepSeek’s connections to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
“The national security threat that DeepSeek—a CCP-affiliated company—poses to the United States is alarming. DeepSeek’s generative AI program acquires the data of U.S. users and stores the information for unidentified use by the CCP. Under no circumstances can we allow a CCP company to obtain sensitive government or personal data,” LaHood said in a press release.
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Gottheimer said the CCP has made it clear it plans to “exploit any tool at its disposal to undermine our national security, spew harmful disinformation, and collect data on Americans.”
On Feb. 4, Australia banned the Chinese application from government systems, saying it poses an “unacceptable risk to Australian government technology.” A day earlier, Taiwan’s Premier Cho Jung-tai also announced a ban on the Chinese application over national security concerns.
Canada and its allies have already cracked down on other Chinese applications, such as TikTok, due to concerns over data collection practices. These concerns are partly rooted in Chinese laws, like the 2017 National Intelligence Law, which compels Chinese citizens and businesses to cooperate with state intelligence operations, including providing all data to the government.
DeepSeek’s privacy policy says it can collect users’ information, date of birth, email addresses, and telephone numbers, in addition to any information users provide during interactions with the AI, including audio and text. Additionally, the chatbot notes that it may collect access tokens when logging into third-party services.
Critics of the Chinese regime have also raised concerns about DeepSeek’s potential role in advancing the CCP’s suppression of human rights and censorship.
Sheng Xue, a Chinese-Canadian democracy activist based in Toronto, posted on social media several questions to DeepSeek regarding her role as an rights advocate. In response, the program initially declined to answer, later stating that her advocacy was contrary to China’s “socialist values.” The chatbot also expressed loyalty to the CCP’s leadership.
While the Chinese artificial intelligence company was founded in 2023, the DeepSeek chatbot gained attention after the release of its latest model, DeepSeek R1, in January. The company claimed that the model rivalled the capabilities of ChatGPT, developed by the U.S. company OpenAI, but at a far lower cost.
