Lawmakers move to ban DeepSeek’s AI from government devices

House lawmakers are seeking to bar federal employees from downloading Chinese startup DeepSeek's artificial intelligence chatbot app onto their government-issued devices over national security concerns.

The bipartisan proposal — introduced on Feb. 6 by Reps. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., and Darin LaHood, R-Ill. — comes in response to the sudden emergence of DeepSeek’s AI app, which rivals the capabilities of U.S. genAI competitors like OpenAI while having been developed for a fraction of the cost. The bill is co-sponsored by 16 other lawmakers from both sides of the aisle.

Gottheimer warned in a statement that Beijing is “using DeepSeek to steal the sensitive data of U.S. citizens” and called it “a five alarm national security fire.”

Security researchers have expressed concerns about DeepSeek’s ties with the Chinese Communist Party and the fact that it is capable of sending user information to Chinese-owned telecommunications provider China Mobile. The Federal Communications Commission unanimously voted in 2019 to block China Mobile from operating in the U.S. because of its ties with Beijing. 

Citing national security concerns, Democratic New York Governor Kathy Hochul announced on Monday that state employees would be barred from downloading DeepSeek’s app onto their government-issued devices.

South Korea's National Intelligence Service also warned last week that the app "excessively" collects personal data and called for its federal agencies to take precautions against using the tool. 

“We simply can’t risk the CCP infiltrating the devices of our government officials and jeopardizing our national security,” Gottheimer said about the AI app, adding that “we’ve seen China’s playbook before with TikTok, and we cannot allow it to happen again.”

As Gottheimer noted, the effort to block DeepSeek’s chatbot comes after federal agencies banned popular video app TikTok from government-issued devices over similar national security concerns.

Congress overwhelmingly voted last year to impose a nationwide ban on TikTok unless it divests from its Chinese parent company ByteDance, although President Donald Trump issued an executive order last month granting the company a 75-day extension to comply with the law. 

In a statement calling for the bill’s passage, LaHood also said that “the technology race with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is not one the United States can afford to lose.”

Beyond expressing national security concerns about DeepSeek’s app, some researchers and officials have also claimed that the Chinese startup pilfered critical data from U.S.-based firms to create its model. 

Microsoft announced late last month that it is investigating whether individuals connected with DeepSeek gained unauthorized access to OpenAI’s data. Trump administration AI and Crypto Czar David Sacks also told Fox News last month that “there’s substantial evidence that what DeepSeek did here is they distilled the knowledge out of OpenAI’s models.”

The lawmakers’ proposal comes after Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., introduced legislation on Jan. 29 that seeks to prohibit “the importation into the United States of artificial intelligence or generative artificial intelligence technology or intellectual property developed or produced in the People’s Republic of China.”