Push to ban DeepSeek from all US government-owned devices amid fears Chinese chatbot could collect vital data

Democrats are pushing to ban DeepSeek from all US government-owned devices amid fears that the AI chatbot may be collecting vital data and sending it to servers owned by the Chinese government, it has emerged. 

A new bill proposed by Rep. Josh Gottheimer aims to ban the app from all federal technologies, except for law enforcement and instances of national security-related activity.

The legislation also moves to ban any future product developed by High-Flyer, the Chinese hedge fund backing the DeepSeek, from US government-owned devices. 

‘I think we should ban DeepSeek from all government devices immediately. No one should be allowed to download it onto their device,’ Gottheimer, who sits on the House Intelligence Committee, told ABC News.

Gottheimer’s bill would require the Office of Management and Budget to develop guidelines for removing the app from federal devices within 60 days. 

The proposal comes after cybersecurity researchers discovered that DeepSeek, which quickly became the most downloaded app in the US, has computer code that could send some user login information to a Chinese state-owned telecommunications company that has been barred from operating in America. 

The growth of Chinese-controlled digital services has become a major topic of concern for US national security officials. 

Lawmakers in Congress last year on an overwhelmingly bipartisan basis voted to force the Chinese parent company of the popular video-sharing app TikTok to divest or face a nationwide ban though the app has since received a 75-day reprieve from President Donald Trump, who is hoping to work out a sale.

Gottheimer was one of the lawmakers behind the TikTok bill.

The web login page of DeepSeek’s chatbot contains heavily obfuscated computer script that when deciphered shows connections to computer infrastructure owned by China Mobile, a state-owned telecommunications company. 

The code appears to be part of the account creation and user login process for DeepSeek, researchers have revealed.

In its privacy policy, DeepSeek acknowledged storing data on servers inside the People’s Republic of China. But its chatbot appears more directly tied to the Chinese state than previously known through the link revealed by researchers to China Mobile. 

The US has claimed there are close ties between China Mobile and the Chinese military as justification for placing limited sanctions on the company.

The code linking DeepSeek to one of China’s leading mobile phone providers was first discovered by Feroot Security, a Canadian cybersecurity company. 

Feroot’s findings were then presented to a second set of computer experts, who independently confirmed that China Mobile code is present. 

Neither Feroot nor the other researchers observed data transferred to China Mobile when testing logins in North America, but they could not rule out that data for some users was being transferred to the Chinese telecom.

The analysis only applies to the web version of DeepSeek. They did not analyze the mobile version, which remains one of the most downloaded pieces of software on both the Apple and the Google app stores.

The US Federal Communications Commission unanimously denied China Mobile authority to operate in the United States in 2019, citing ‘substantial’ national security concerns about links between the company and the Chinese state. 

In 2021, the Biden administration also issued sanctions limiting the ability of Americans to invest in China Mobile after the Pentagon linked it to the Chinese military.

‘It’s mindboggling that we are unknowingly allowing China to survey Americans and we’re doing nothing about it,’ Ivan Tsarynny, CEO of Feroot, said Wednesday.

‘It’s hard to believe that something like this was accidental. There are so many unusual things to this. You know that saying “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire”? In this instance, there’s a lot of smoke,’ he added.

A former top US security expert added that DeepSeek ‘raises all of the TikTok concerns plus you’re talking about information that is highly likely to be of more national security and personal significance than anything people do on TikTok’.

Users are increasingly putting sensitive data into generative AI systems – everything from confidential business information to highly personal details about themselves. 

People are using generative AI systems for spell-checking, research and even highly personal queries and conversations. 

The data security risks of such technology are magnified when the platform is owned by a geopolitical adversary and could represent an intelligence goldmine for a country, experts warn.

‘The implications of this are significantly larger because personal and proprietary information could be exposed. It’s like TikTok but at a much grander scale and with more precision. It´s not just sharing entertainment videos. It’s sharing queries and information that could include highly personal and sensitive business information,’ said Tsarynny.

This is a breaking news story. Check back for updates.