Kathmandu. Chinese artificial intelligence app DeepSik is transferring personal data to a cloud service platform without users’ consent, South Korea’s data protection authority said on Thursday.
It was still available for download, according to the authority. According to the Personal Information Protection Commission (PIPC), information including device, network and user inputs in the AI prompt was transferred to servers on the Beijing platform Volcano Engine.
DeepSik’s R1 chatbot surprised investors and industry experts in January after it showed the ability to match the tasks of Western competitors at a negligible cost. However, South Korea, Italy, Australia and some US states have questioned DeepSec’s storage of user data and have banned or limited its use.
The PIPC began its investigation in February and will no longer be available for download until a review of DeepSec’s personal data collection practices is complete. “Initially, DeepSik transferred personal data to companies located in China and the United States without obtaining users’ consent or disclosing it in the privacy policy when the service was launched,” commission official Nam Seok told reporters. “In particular, it was confirmed that DeepSik transferred not only device, network and app information, but also user inputs in AI prompts to the Volcano engine.”
According to Nam, after the investigation, DeepSik admitted that it had insufficiently considered Korea’s data protection laws, expressed its willingness to cooperate with the commission and voluntarily suspended new downloads from domestic app markets. DeepSik did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The company said the data was collected on “secure servers located in the People’s Republic of China.”
The company claims its AI tools are built using less sophisticated chips than its competitors, reducing costs. The app was downloaded millions of times in the weeks since its launch. Volcano Engine is a Beijing-based cloud services platform owned by ByteDance, which is also the parent company of the hugely popular platform TikTok. When asked about the data transfer to Volcano Engine, Dipsicle said it was sent for the purpose of fixing security vulnerabilities and improving the user interface and experience.
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