The Czech government banned the use of Chinese AI startup DeepSeek's services in public administration on July 9, 2025, due to data security concerns. Prime Minister Petr Fiala announced that the decision followed a warning from the national cybersecurity watchdog, noting that DeepSeek, as a Chinese company, is obliged to cooperate with Chinese government bodies, potentially giving Beijing access to data stored on DeepSeek's servers in China.
The move follows similar restrictions in other countries including Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Australia, driven by concerns about data protection. Italy blocked access to the chatbot in January 2025, while a German privacy official called on Apple and Google to remove DeepSeek from their app stores in June 2025. The Czech government had previously distanced itself from Chinese technology in 2018 when it stopped using hardware and software made by telecommunications companies Huawei and ZTE after receiving a security warning.
DeepSeek, founded in 2023 in Hangzhou, China, with its first AI language model released that same year, gained significant attention in January 2025 when it claimed to have developed an AI model rivalling those from US firms such as OpenAI's ChatGPT at much lower cost. According to its own privacy policy, DeepSeek stores numerous pieces of personal data, including requests to its AI programme and uploaded files, on computers in China.
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Reuters · July 9, 2025
