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DeepSeek Faces Expulsion from App Stores in Germany

FILE - The smartphone apps DeepSeek page is seen on a smartphone screen in Beijing, Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Andy Wong, File)
FILE - The smartphone apps DeepSeek page is seen on a smartphone screen in Beijing, Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Andy Wong, File)
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DeepSeek Faces Expulsion from App Stores in Germany

FILE - The smartphone apps DeepSeek page is seen on a smartphone screen in Beijing, Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Andy Wong, File)
FILE - The smartphone apps DeepSeek page is seen on a smartphone screen in Beijing, Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Andy Wong, File)

Germany has taken steps towards blocking Chinese AI startup DeepSeek from the Apple and Google app stores due to concerns about data protection, according to a data protection authority commissioner in a statement on Friday.

DeepSeek has been reported to the two US tech giants as illegal content, said commissioner Meike Kamp, and the companies must now review the concerns and decide whether to block the app in Germany, Reuters reported.

"DeepSeek has not been able to provide my agency with convincing evidence that German users' data is protected in China to a level equivalent to that in the European Union," she said.

"Chinese authorities have far-reaching access rights to personal data within the sphere of influence of Chinese companies," she added.

The move comes after Reuters exclusively reported this week that DeepSeek is aiding China's military and intelligence operations.

DeepSeek, which shook the technology world in January with claims that it had developed an AI model that rivaled those from US firms such as ChatGPT creator OpenAI at much lower cost, says it stores numerous personal data, such as requests to the AI or uploaded files, on computers in China.

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Microsoft Halts China-based Tech Support for Pentagon Systems

FILE - The Microsoft company logo is displayed at their offices in Sydney, Australia, on Feb. 3, 2021. (AP Photo/Rick Rycroft, File)
FILE - The Microsoft company logo is displayed at their offices in Sydney, Australia, on Feb. 3, 2021. (AP Photo/Rick Rycroft, File)
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Microsoft Halts China-based Tech Support for Pentagon Systems

FILE - The Microsoft company logo is displayed at their offices in Sydney, Australia, on Feb. 3, 2021. (AP Photo/Rick Rycroft, File)
FILE - The Microsoft company logo is displayed at their offices in Sydney, Australia, on Feb. 3, 2021. (AP Photo/Rick Rycroft, File)

Microsoft said Friday it is making sure that personnel based in China are not providing technical support for US Defense Department systems, after investigative news site ProPublica revealed the practice earlier this week.

Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth confirmed that work on Defense Department cloud services had been outsourced to people in China, insisting that the country will not have "any involvement whatsoever" with the department's systems going forward.

"Microsoft has made changes to our support for US Government customers to assure that no China-based engineering teams are providing technical assistance for DoD Government cloud and related services," the company's chief communications officer, Frank Shaw, said in a post on X.

ProPublica reported Tuesday that the tech giant was using engineers based in China -- Washington's primary military rival -- to maintain Pentagon computer systems, with only limited supervision by US personnel who often lacked the necessary expertise to do the job effectively.

US Senator Tom Cotton asked Hegseth to look into the matter in a letter dated Thursday, and the Pentagon chief responded that he would do so.

Hegseth then posted a video on X Friday evening in which he said "it turns out that some tech companies have been using cheap Chinese labor to assist with DoD cloud services. This is obviously unacceptable, especially in today's digital threat environment."

"At my direction, the department will... initiate -- as fast as we can -- a two-week review, or faster, to make sure that what we uncovered isn't happening anywhere else across the DoD," AFP quoted him as saying.

"We will continue to monitor and counter all threats to our military infrastructure and online networks," he added, thanking "all those Americans out there in the media and elsewhere who raised this issue to our attention so we could address it."