Italy’s data protection authority is asking Chinese artificial intelligence startup DeepSeek for formal responses on how it handles Italians’ data when they use its AI chatbot app.
The authority known as the Garante on Tuesday said it sent DeepSeek requests to disclose what personal data it collects, where it comes from, how it’s used, what legal basis it has to process that data under the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation and whether that data is stored on servers in China.
The Chinese AI firm emerged as a fierce competitor to industry leaders like OpenAI this weekend, when it launched a competitive model to ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini and other leading AI-fueled chatbots. DeepSeek claimed its tool was created at a fraction of the cost of others.
The release has triggered an industry panic in the U.S., as key shares in the tech sector dropped sharply on Monday. Critics have pointed to national security concerns associated with such a popular Chinese app. In Europe, concerns have been raised about how the app stores sensitive and personal data in China.
The Italian regulator is the first European authority to report it is going after the app. DeepSeek has 20 days to respond to the questions, which puts the deadline on Feb. 17.
Consumer groups Euroconsumers and Italy’s Altroconsumo said they’d earlier told the authority that they believed DeepSeek’s data handling breached EU rules.
DeepSeek did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Italy’s data privacy regulators are no strangers to enforcing against AI companies. It briefly banned ChatGPT over alleged privacy violations when the app caught global attention in 2023. In December it fined its parent company OpenAI €15 million.
