DeepSeek, the hedge fund-backed Chinese version of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, has been prohibited on Australian government-issued systems and devices following a risk assessment by the Department of Home Affairs.
Department secretary Stephanie Foster issued a Protective Security Policy Framework direction on Tuesday saying “the use of DeepSeek products, applications and web services poses an unacceptable level of security risk to the Australian Government”.
She ordered that all government employees in non-corporate Commonwealth entities, including politicians and their staff, as well as public servants, must “remove all existing instances of DeepSeek products, applications and web services on all Australian Government systems and mobile devices” and prevent their ongoing access, use or installation.
“Entities must manage the risks arising from DeepSeek’s extensive collection of data and exposure of that data to extrajudicial directions from a foreign government that conflict with Australian law,” she wrote.
The NSW government moved swiftly last week to block the Chinese chatbot, issued a ban on January 30.
Information Age reported that NSW Department of Customer Service were informed last Thursday that “After careful analysis of the way the platform handles data and accesses technical information, we have made the decision to block access to this service on work devices and systems to protect our data and information.”
Other NSW government departments are also assessing their policy, while other states are also investigating how to respond to the sudden surge in interest in the Chinese AI startup.
Information Age reported that Victorian public servants have been told not to input sensitive information into generative AI systems and instructed not to use DeepSeek on work devices.
DeepSeek’s sudden arrival just a week ago shook the foundations of US tech. The startup was founded in 2023 by Chinese hedge fund High Flyer and claimed to have developed its Large Language Model (the training for generative AI responses) for just US$5.6 million – a fraction of OpenAI’s investment in ChatGPT.
The news briefly wiped around $1 trillion in value from chip maker Nvidia’s share price, and there were subsequent accusations that DeepSeek had stolen training data from OpenAI, to develop its responses.
What many have noted already is DeepSeek’s alignment with the Chinese Communist Party’s world view and sensitivities around domestic politics.
The Australian Home Affairs directive allows for exemptions to use DeepSeek “for a legitimate business reason”, limited to national security and regulatory functions, and law enforcement, but only for a limited time.
DeepSeek has also been banned in several US institutions, including the Pentagon, Navy, NASA, as well as by Italy and Taiwan.
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