Tech Desk 
Feb 05, 2025
An undated image of DeepSeek logo. — Depositphotos
In a harrowing development for DeepSeek, the latest Chinese entrant in the realm of artificial intelligence (AI), Australia has banned government devices from using DeepSeek.
Regarding the reason behind blocking the new Chinese AI chatbot, the country said that it poses “an unacceptable level of security risk”, according to an official order quoted by Dawn.
“After considering threat and risk analysis, I have determined that the use of DeepSeek products, applications and web services poses an unacceptable level of security risk to the Australian Government,” said Secretary Stephanie Foster, secretary to the Department of Home Affairs in Australia.
The conditional ban comes on the heels of Taiwan and Italian authorities implementing restrictions on the usage of DeepSeek on government devices.
The country went on to proclaim that all non-corporate Commonwealth entities must “identify and remove all existing instances of DeepSeek products, applications and web services on all Australian Government systems and mobile devices.”
In light of the directives issued by the Australian government, access, use as well as installation of DeepSeek have been disallowed on all government-owned systems and mobile devices.
