The News
US lawmakers introduced a bill Thursday that would ban Chinese startup DeepSeek’s AI software from government-owned devices, as Washington grows more concerned that the application could provide sensitive user information to the Chinese government.
The bipartisan bill — written by Reps. Darin LaHood, an Illinois Republican, and Josh Gottheimer, a New Jersey Democrat — is similar to past legislation that banned TikTok from government devices, The Wall Street Journal reported.
“We simply can’t risk the [Chinese Communist Party] infiltrating the devices of our government officials and jeopardizing our national security,” Gottheimer said in a statement.
Congressional offices have already been forbidden from installing the application on any official devices amid concerns the application may be used “to deliver malicious software and infect devices.”
The governments of South Korea, Australia, and Taiwan have also blocked their employees from using the app, and on Wednesday, an Indian ministry warned officials to “strictly avoid” using AI tools including DeepSeek and ChatGPT.