Deepseek Under Fire: German Regulator Demands App Store Removal Over Data Risks

The Federal Data Protection Officer has asked the large app store operators Google and Apple to remove the apps of the Chinese AI provider Deepseek from their stores. The background is massive data protection concerns.

Data security not given when storing it in China

As the Federal Commissioner for Data Protection Meike Kamp said today in a message, she assumes that at Deepseek data from users from Germany will be illegally transferred to China. The two large US corporations must now check Kamp’s deletion prompt and decide from their stores about deleting the Deepseek app, it said. In its terms of use, Deepseek states that various personal data of users are stored. This applies, among other things, to the inquiries made to the tool and the files uploaded. The company expressly mentioned China as a memory location, after all, the Deepseek servers run there.

Kamp continued to explain that Deepseek was unable to prove convincingly that the data of the users on its Chinese servers is just as protected as with storage in the European Union. The problem is that the Chinese authorities have far -reaching access rights when it comes to the sphere of influence of the Chinese companies. According to the Federal Data Protection Officer, Deepseek had already received the request in May to either meet the requirements for security when transferring data into non-EU foreign countries or to voluntarily remove its app from the big stores.

To date, Deepseek has not met the claim. Deepseek caused a sensation in January because it was claimed to have developed a new Large Language Model (LLM) at a fraction of the costs that should offer a performance similar to Chatgpt and other US companies. In Italy, Deepseek has already been banished from the app stores due to concerns about data protection.