"Disturbing" new detail emerges about DeepSeek and what it does with your data

DeepSeek has taken the world by storm, sending shock waves through Wall Street that greatly affected Nvidia, rising to the top of the App Store, and prompting responses from Western AI firms as well as governments and agencies like NASA.

DeepSeek is a Chinese company, and this has raised significant security concerns regarding privacy, especially given that one of the world's biggest social media platforms, TikTok, was shut down in the US over its parent company's links to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Lawmakers are addressing national security concerns related to the use of AI models by Chinese companies like DeepSeek. Missouri Republican Senator Josh Hawley has even introduced a bill that could potentially jail users who use models from Chinese companies like DeepSeek.

Now, a new report from Feroot Security, a cybersecurity firm, reveals that if you've signed up for DeepSeek, obfuscated code in the account creation and login process may be sending your information to China Mobile, a Chinese-owned telecommunications company banned from operating in the US since May 2019 due to national security concerns.

Speaking to ABC News, Ivan Tsarynny, Feroot Security's CEO said:

We see direct links to servers and to companies in China that are under control of the Chinese government. And this is something that we have never seen in the past.

It's already known that DeepSeek stores your data on servers in China. DeepSeek admitted this in its Privacy Policy (archived). But this is much more than just storing your data in China.

Tsarynny stated that AI software was used to deobfuscate DeepSeek's hidden code, uncovering potential data transfers to CMPassport.com, the official account management portal for China Mobile, which is owned and operated by the Chinese government.

It appears that users are being fingerprinted, and that fingerprint is used to track user activity not only on DeepSeek's website but also on other websites the users visit.

In response to the development, Rep. Josh Gottheimer called it "alarming" and demanded an immediate ban on DeepSeek from all government devices. Similarly, Australia has banned DeepSeek on government devices, citing "unacceptable security risk."

Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi also reacted by calling DeepSeek's obfuscated method of data collection "disturbing." Speaking to ABC News, he argued that it is no accident this "pattern of data collection" appears in DeepSeek, as CCP-controlled company apps use it quite often, and you "use those apps at your own risk."

Image via Depositphotos.com

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