Due to data protection concerns, Germany's data protection commissioner has requested that Google and Apple take the Chinese AI startup DeepSeek off of their local app stores.
Commissioner Meike Kamp stated that she had submitted the request due to DeepSeek's unlawful transfer of user data to China.
She noted that the two American digital behemoths now had to quickly consider the request and determine whether to prohibit the app in Germany.
DeepSeek's own privacy policy states that it keeps a lot of personal information on Chinese computers, including uploaded files and requests to its AI algorithm.
“DeepSeek has not been able to provide my agency with convincing evidence that German users’ data is protected in China to a level equivalent to that in the European Union,” Kamp said.
“Chinese authorities have far-reaching access rights to personal data within the sphere of influence of Chinese companies,” she added.
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According to the commissioner, she made the choice after requesting in May that DeepSeek either comply with the regulations governing non-EU data transfers or voluntarily remove its app.
She stated that DeepSeek had not complied with this request.
In January, DeepSeek shocked the IT community by claiming to have created an AI model that was on par with those from American companies like OpenAI, the company that created ChatGPT, but at a significantly lower cost.
However, its data security measures have drawn criticism from both the US and Europe.
The Netherlands has prohibited it on government devices, and Italy restricted it from app stores early this year due to a lack of disclosure about how it uses personal data.
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Since taking office, President Trump has made it a priority to keep the US ahead of the competition in AI chips. As a result, the administration swiftly implemented export restrictions on the H20 AI accelerator, one of NVIDIA's top-selling chips in China. DeepSeek is reportedly having issues with its next R2 AI model after being essentially deprived of computing power. According to a report by The Information, CEO Liang Wenfeng is dissatisfied with the LLM's performance, and Chinese CSPs are unable to easily implement the R2 model due to a shortage of NVIDIA chips.
DeepSeek has been engrossed by the recent round of export limitations, which have undoubtedly limited the flow of high-end accelerators to the mainland, despite China's involvement in gaining access to AI processors through a variety of "workarounds." There was a lot of excitement surrounding DeepSeek's next model, likely the R2, after the firm achieved significant progress with its previous model, the DeepSeek R1, which erased billions of NVIDIA's market capitalization after it was rumored that the company used limited financial resources.