Australia Bans DeepSeek from Government Devices Over Security Concerns
Australia has officially banned the use of DeepSeek on all government devices, citing “an unacceptable level of security risk” posed by the Chinese artificial intelligence program, according to a directive issued on Tuesday.
Stephanie Foster, Secretary of the Department of Home Affairs, stated, “After considering threat and risk analysis, I have determined that the use of DeepSeek products, applications, and web services poses an unacceptable level of security risk to the Australian Government.”
Effective immediately, all non-corporate Commonwealth entities are required to “identify and remove all existing instances of DeepSeek products, applications, and web services” from Australian government systems and mobile devices. The directive also mandates that access to, use of, or installation of DeepSeek products be blocked across all government platforms.
This move follows growing global scrutiny over DeepSeek’s operations. The Chinese AI startup raised concerns last month when it claimed its new R1 chatbot rivals leading U.S. AI technology at a significantly lower cost. Countries including South Korea, Ireland, France, Australia, and Italy have raised alarms about DeepSeek’s data handling practices, particularly regarding personal data and the information used to train its AI system.