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Australia’s science minister, Ed Husic, has become the first member of a Western government to raise privacy concerns about DeepSeek, the Chinese chatbot causing turmoil on the markets and in the tech industry.
Chinese tech, from Huawei to TikTok, has repeatedly been the subject of allegations the firms are linked to the Chinese state, and fears this could lead to peoples’ data being harvested for intelligence purposes.
Donald Trump has said DeepSeek is a “wake up call” for the US but did not seem to suggest it was a threat to national security – instead saying it could even be a good thing if it brought costs down.
But Husic told ABC News on Tuesday there remained a lot of unanswered questions, including over “data and privacy management.”
“I would be very careful about that, these type of issues need to be weighed up carefully,” he added.
DeepSeek has not responded to the BBC’s request for comment – but users in the UK and US have so far shown no such caution.
DeepSeek has rocketed to the top of the app stores in both countries, with market analysts Sensor Tower saying it has seen 3 million downloads since launch.
As much as 80% of these have come in the past week – meaning it has been downloaded at three times the rate of rivals such as Perplexity.
Meanwhile, US officials have raised questions about national security, according to White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.
“I spoke with [the National Security Council] this morning, they are looking into what [the national security implications] may be,” she said.
And the US navy has reportedly banned its members from using DeepSeek’s apps altogether, citing “potential security and ethical concerns”, according to CNBC.
The Navy did not immediately respond to a request for comment from BBC News.
