About a week after its release, Italy became the first country to formally request a probe for how Deepseeks Chatbot handles users’ personal data.
“Possible risk of the data from millions of people in Italy,” the Italian Data Guard Dog Authority wrote, known as guarantee, Tuesday, January 28, 2025 in an official announcement.
Deepseek has been developed by a slightly well-known Chinese start-up and has seen almost 3 million downloads since launch and reached an estimated total user base of between 5-6 million users worldwide, according to SEO.AI data. Still, experts in and out of Europe have warned about the potential consequences for privacy.
The companies that supply the Chinese chatgpt -rival – Hangzhou Deepseek Artificial Intelligence and Beijing Deepseek Artificial Intelligence – now have 20 days to respond to Italy’s complaint.
Against GDPR rules
Guarantor’s complaint follows a report filed by Euroconsumers – a coalition of five national consumer organizations that also include its Italian member, Altrocunsumo.
After looking at how the Deepseek app and chat services collect and handle users’ data according to its own privacy policy, Euroconusm’s “several violations of European and national data protection provisions,” the report found.
These include transfers of European data to China without protective measures as required in GDPR rules, unclear information on how user data is used for online profiling, non-transparent information during data storage periods and the lack of details of age verification or handling of data from minors among minors other.
Guarantee also asks the companies behind Deepseek AI to provide the clarifications needed for the services to legally function in the country.
Italy’s data Watchdog is looking for more information about the type of data used to train the artificial intelligence system. If personal data is collected through web scraping activities, Deepseek also has to clarify “how users who are registered and those not registered in the service have been or informed about the processing of their data,” Guarantee wrote.
“Technological efficiency, whether important, cannot prevail over people’s fundamental rights. It is important to ensure that the development of AI occurs in full compliance with European regulation representing a column in the protection of basic values and Rights, “Marco Scialdone, head of litigation at Euroconsumers told Eurofocus and commented on the complaint.
This is not the first time that Italy has called a violation of AI -Chatbot’s familiarity.
In April 2023, guarantee temporarily banned the use of chatgpt across the country as the AI mammut was found responsible for incorrect collection and storage of Italian data And consequently Violation of GDPR rules. At that time, Chatgpt Ban provoked an increase in VPN downloads as the Italians were looking for ways to maintain access to the popular AI chatbot.
It is too early to see if Deepseek will share the same fate, but we nevertheless advise you to approach the AI news with caution if you are interested in your online privacy.
