DeepSeek is a Chinese artificial intelligence company that develops open-source large language models (LLM). (Image: DeepSeek logo)
SEOUL, April 24 (Korea Bizwire) — Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) service DeepSeek, which temporarily suspended its service in South Korea amid controversy over its data management, was found to have transferred Korean user information to several companies in China and the United States without permission, the state data protection watchdog said Thursday.
It was also found that the content users entered into DeepSeek’s prompts to obtain the answers they need through the generative AI service was passed on to a Chinese company, according to the Personal Information Protection Commission (PIPC).
DeepSeek, which launched its service here on Jan. 15 this year, transferred users’ personal information to three companies in China and one in the U.S. by Feb. 15, when the service was discontinued, the PIPC said. It failed to obtain the consent of users over the information transfer or disclose the transfer in its personal information processing policy.
DeepSeek’s information processing policy, written in Chinese and English, also omits legal requirements, such as procedures and methods for destroying personal information and safety measures.
For instance, DeepSeek sent what users entered into the prompts, as well as information about their devices, networks and apps, to Volcano, a Chinese company affiliated with ByteDance, the parent company of Chinese social media platform TikTok, the PIPC noted.
DeepSeek confirmed that it had transferred personal information to Volcano without user consent but explained that it had only used Volcano’s cloud service to improve security vulnerabilities and the user interface, the watchdog said.
The PIPC said it pointed out that the transfer of information entered by users into the DeepSeek prompts was unnecessary and the Chinese service blocked new transfers beginning April 10.
(Yonhap)
