• A bipartisan bill was introduced in the House of Representatives to ban DeepSeek’s artificial intelligence chatbot on government-issued devices. Lawmakers claim the app’s code is linked to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), raising significant data tracking and national security concerns.
• DeepSeek’s code reportedly allows data sharing with China Mobile, a company owned by the Chinese government and banned in the U.S. by the FCC.
• The concerns about DeepSeek are similar to those regarding TikTok, which Congress voted to ban unless its parent company sells the app.

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A bill to ban DeepSeek’s AI chatbot on government-issued devices was introduced in the House of Representatives on Thursday, Feb. 6, by bipartisan members of the Intelligence Committee. The lawmakers said the application’s code is directly linked to the Chinese Communist Party, raising data tracking concerns.

“We have deeply disturbing evidence that [the CCP] are using DeepSeek to steal the sensitive data of U.S. citizens. This is a five-alarm national security fire,” Rep. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., said in a statement. “We simply can’t risk the CCP infiltrating the devices of our government officials and jeopardizing our national security.

What are the concerns over DeepSeek?

DeepSeek’s code allows data to be shared with China Mobile. The company is owned by the Chinese government and has close ties with the country’s military. China Mobile is banned in the United States by the FCC. 

“DeepSeek’s generative AI program acquires the data of U.S. users and stores the information for unidentified use by the CCP. Under no circumstances can we allow a CCP company to obtain sensitive government or personal data,” Rep. Darin LaHood, R-Ill., said.  “This commonsense, bipartisan piece of legislation will ban the app from federal workers’ phones while closing backdoor operations the company seeks to exploit for access.” 

The concerns about DeepSeek mirror those regarding the short-form video app TikTok. Congress voted to ban in the United States entirely unless its parent company sells the app.  

TikTok collects a large amount of data on its users. That includes their location, messages, keystrokes (what they type), file names and types, photographs and videos, and biometric information like face and voice. 

As the lawmakers explained, Americans share highly sensitive, proprietary information with DeepSeek, including contracts, documents and financial records. They said in the wrong hands, the data is an enormous asset to China. 

The CCP is known for stealing intellectual property from American companies. They use it to create the same products in China for less money and out-price the companies that developed it.

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The national security, military and economic threat posed by the CCP is one of the few bipartisan issues on which Congress moves quickly.