- Company
- DeepSeek
- Regulator or court
- Personal Information Protection Commission (PIPC)
- Law
- Personal Information Protection Act
- Status
- Resolved – downloads resumed April 2025 after corrective steps
What happened
Weeks after the Chinese AI chatbot launched, South Korea's privacy regulator had new downloads of the app suspended from 15 February 2025 because of concerns about its privacy policy and data sharing with third parties. In April the regulator found DeepSeek had sent user data, including AI prompts, to companies in China and the US without proper consent, and told it to delete prompt data sent to a Chinese cloud provider and fix its consent process. The app returned to Korean app stores in late April 2025.
Sources
The Hacker News – South Korea suspends DeepSeek downloadsBitdefender – DeepSeek returns to South Korea (PIPC findings)Summary in our own words. General information, not legal advice.