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South Korea warns DeepSeek of excessive personal data collection; answers to sensitive questions vary in different languages Cantonese Group Report 2025.02.11 Social media sharing button (Photo by Cheng Haonan) South Korea's National Intelligence Service accused China's artificial intelligence (AI) application DeepSeek of "excessively" collecting user personal data and using all the input data to train itself. When asked sensitive questions, it would give different answers based on the language. The mystery of DeepSeek is gradually being revealed, and users' sensitive data is exposed. Western countries are beginning to restrict its use. DeepSeek accused of transmitting user data back to Chinese servers In-depth investigation: How DeepSeek quickly emerged by leveraging Hong Kong, private enterprises, and universities The mystery of DeepSeek is gradually being revealed, and users' sensitive data is exposed. Western countries are beginning to restrict its use. Reuters reported that South Korea's National Intelligence Service (NIS) officially notified government agencies last week, urging them to take security precautions regarding DeepSeek. The NIS statement stated, "Unlike other generative AI services, DeepSeek's chat logs have been confirmed to be transferable because it collects keyboard input patterns, which can be used to identify individuals and send the data to Chinese corporate servers, including volceapplog.com." Allowing advertisers unrestricted access to user personal information NIS said DeepSeek allowed advertisers unrestricted access to user personal information and stored South Korean user data on Chinese servers; under relevant Chinese laws, the Beijing authorities have the right to request access to this data. Some South Korean government agencies have banned DeepSeek for security reasons. Australia and Taiwan have also issued warnings or imposed restrictions on DeepSeek. Italy has ordered restrictions on DeepSeek's access to the personal data of users in the country. The NIS also pointed out that DeepSeek may give completely different answers to sensitive questions in different language environments. One example is the origin of Korean kimchi. If asked in Korean, DeepSeek answers, "It is a representative food that embodies Korean culture and history." But if asked in Chinese, DeepSeek answers, "It is not Korean, it is Chinese." When asked about the June 4th Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989, DeepSeek would suggest, "Let's talk about something else!" According to Reuters, the answers obtained when asking DeepSeek in different languages are indeed different. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said last Thursday (6th) that China has always opposed the practice of generalizing the concept of national security and politicizing economic, trade and technological issues, and emphasized that the Chinese government attaches great importance to and protects data privacy and security in accordance with the law, and has never and will never require companies or individuals to collect or store data in an illegal manner. Editor: Li Xiangyang (Taipei)
