“China does not have a level of data protection that corresponds to our General Data Protection Regulation,” she told the newspapers of the Funke media group. Data transfers to China are “extremely critical,” she said.
The data protection officer for the city-state of Berlin, Meike Kamp, has already reported DeepSeek to Google and Apple as “illegal content.” The two US companies must now review the report and decide on a ban.
Kamp is allowed to act in this case because DeepSeek does not have a branch in Europe, which would otherwise fall under the jurisdiction of the local data protection authority.
Specht-Riemenschneider said she supports the initiative of the Berlin data protection officer and did not accept criticism that data protection is a hindrance to innovation.
“Data protection is a guarantee of trust. It can even be a competitive advantage,” said Specht-Riemenschneider. “What hinders innovation is legal uncertainty in the market. And this also stems from a proliferation of digital legislation.”
She said that digital legislation in Europe must be better coordinated, with clear rules including for data protection.
Authorities in South Korea, Italy, Taiwan and Australia have already taken action against DeepSeek.
The Italian data protection authority launched an investigation to determine whether the app violates the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
In the United States, there is no nationwide ban, but several federal agencies, such as NASA and the Department of Defense, have prohibited their employees from using the app.
Based on open-source language models, the chatbot from China has shaken up the AI industry, as the app achieves comparable or even better results than established providers like OpenAI, Google or Meta.
At the same time, DeepSeek says the development of the programme has cost only a fraction of what OpenAI, for example, has invested in ChatGPT.
