Chinese artificial intelligence startup DeepSeek has shared data with the Beijing parent firm of the popular Chinese app TikTok, South Korean officials told The Epoch Times days after suspending the chatbot’s service in the country.
“There was data exchange with an IP address related to ByteDance,” an official from South Korea’s data protection regulator, the Personal Information Protection Commission, told The Epoch Times on Feb. 19.
Both DeepSeek and TikTok are facing scrutiny over national security concerns tied to their Chinese ownership. TikTok is facing a U.S. federal ban that will take effect unless ByteDance, its Chinese parent company, sells the social media platform, and a number of countries, as well as several U.S. government agencies, have blocked DeepSeek from government devices.
The South Korean official said they are still assessing whether ByteDance or any other related Chinese companies have collected or used personal information as a result of the exchange.
The commission said it is conducting an investigation into the app, including by analyzing IP addresses used to transmit the data units on websites and apps. They will hold a briefing to announce the results, the official said.
South Korea’s regulations require companies operating in the country to obtain consent from users before handing over their personal data to any third party. In a briefing on Feb. 17, the data regulator’s vice chair, Choi Jang-hyuk, noted that DeepSeek hadn’t disclosed specific details about its practices before sharing the data, violating the country’s policy.
Under Beijing’s counterespionage law, companies in China are required to hand over their user data if requested by Chinese Communist Party (CCP) authorities.
The launch of DeepSeek, which is a free, open-source AI model in January sparked global data privacy concerns. The app stores its data on China-based servers, according to its privacy page. It states that user information may be disclosed to third parties if it believes that such disclosure is necessary “to comply with applicable law, legal process or government requests, as consistent with internationally recognized standards.”
A number of major Chinese companies, including Chinese search engine Baidu and the country’s top messaging app WeChat, are linking up with DeepSeek.
“Unlike other generative AI services, it has been confirmed that chat records are transferable, as it includes a function to collect keyboard input patterns that can identify individuals and communicate with Chinese companies’ servers,” South Korea’s National Intelligence Service said in a statement on Feb. 10.
Ivan Tsarynny, CEO of cybersecurity firm Feroot, noted that DeepSeek creates a unique digital fingerprint for each user, which can be used to identify them across other websites they visit.
“That information is sent directly to China,” he told The Epoch Times. “Once it’s on a server in China, that information directly falls under the control of CCP.”
Feroot found in a recent report that DeepSeek has computer code on its login page that could send user data to Chinese state-owned telecommunications company China Mobile, which has been barred from operating in the United States.
Real-time information about individuals provides companies a strong advantage in developing technology in artificial intelligence, and tracking and surveillance, Tsarynny said.
TikTok was briefly shut down in the United States on Jan. 19 because of a law signed by President Joe Biden, which requires ByteDance to sell TikTok or face a nationwide ban.
The Epoch Times reached out to DeepSeek for comment but did not receive a response by publication time.
