Homeland Security bans DeepSeek from federal civilian agency systems
by Mary McCue Bell · The Washington TimesThe Department of Homeland Security has ordered federal civilian agencies to stop buying and remove products from Chinese artificial intelligence company DeepSeek, according to a notice published Tuesday.
The order bans products and services from Hangzhou-based DeepSeek and its affiliates from civilian agency procurements, according to a notice in the Federal Register.
It also requires the removal of all products, plus third-party products and services developed using DeepSeek implementations, from civilian agency IT.
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In an order written in July and made public Monday, DHS said DeepSeek models present “multiple threat vectors.”
The department raised concerns that DeepSeek’s account creation collects personally identifiable information and may track and digitally fingerprint users, adding that its models might contain malware or other security vulnerabilities.
DeepSeek could transfer sensitive data to China if used by U.S. government employees or vendors, DHS said.
“The transfer of the aforementioned information to the [People’s Republic of China], either independently or in combination with publicly available data, could produce actionable intelligence on U.S. persons and/or government programs,” the July order reads.
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Mary McCue Bell
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