Choi Chang-hyuk, Vice Chairman of the Personal Information Protection Commission of South Korea, officially announced, “We have recommended Deepseek implement improvements and additional security measures. Deepseek has accepted these recommendations and has voluntarily suspended its services".
Read more: Multiple countries question Deepseek
According to the South Korean government, when users accessed Deepseek, their data was transmitted to Deepseek’s servers in China and also to servers belonging to ByteDance in the United States. ByteDance is the parent company of TikTok. However, details regarding the type of data transferred, the extent of its exposure, and whether ByteDance served as an intermediary or the final recipient remain unclear.
Deepseek’s terms of service specify that user data is stored exclusively in China, raising concerns over transparency. According to an AI expert, this suggests that Deepseek operates servers outside of China to provide services globally, which could be seen as a violation of its transparency policy.
In response to the situation, a Deepseek representative acknowledged, “We admit that we did not fully consider the data protection laws of the respective country during our global service launch. We will actively cooperate with the South Korean government’s requirements.”
Existing Deepseek users in South Korea are reportedly unaffected by the service suspension. However, the South Korean government has warned that resolving this issue may take considerable time and has advised users to remain cautious in the meantime
