South Korea's National Intelligence Service (NIS) sent an official notice to government agencies last week, calling for security precautions against Chinese artificial intelligence applications.

“Unlike other generative AI services, it has been confirmed that the chat records are transferable because it includes a function that collects personally identifiable keyboard input patterns and communicates with servers of Chinese companies such as volceapplog.com,” the NIS said in a statement released over the weekend.

Several government ministries in South Korea have blocked access to the app, citing security concerns, similar to Australia and Taiwan (China) issuing warnings or imposing restrictions on DeepSeek.

DeepSeek allows advertisers unlimited access to user data and stores South Korean users' data on Chinese servers. Under Chinese law, the Chinese government can access that information upon request, the NIS explained.

The NIS also noted that DeepSeek provided different answers to potentially sensitive questions in different languages. They cited one such question about the origins of kimchi—a spicy, fermented dish that is a staple in Korea.

When asked about this in Korean, the app said kimchi is a Korean dish. When asked the same question in Chinese, it said the dish originated in China. The origin of kimchi has sometimes been a source of contention between Korean and Chinese social media users in recent years.

DeepSeek did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment from Reuters. Asked about the South Korean government ministries’ moves to block DeepSeek, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said at a news conference on Feb. 6 that the Chinese government attaches great importance to data privacy and security and protects it in accordance with the law.

The spokesman also said Beijing would never ask any company or individual to collect or store data in violation of the law.

(Source Reuters)