DeepSeek has been blocked in Italy, according to media reports.

The Italian Data Protection Authority (Garante per la protezione dei dati personali) has urgently restricted the processing of data of Italian users by Chinese companies providing the DeepSeek service.

This was reported by the Garante website.

It is noted that Garante submitted inquiries to the Chinese companies Hangzhou DeepSeek Artificial Intelligence and Beijing DeepSeek Artificial Intelligence, which offer the DeepSeek chatbot service. Specifically, the regulator asked about the purpose of data collection and whether this data is stored in China.

According to reports, the content of the response was deemed completely unacceptable. The Chinese companies claimed that they do not operate in Italy, and therefore, European legislation does not apply to them.

In response, Garante initiated an investigation, after which the application disappeared from digital stores in Italy.

Background. Previously, Mind reported that cyber specialists from Wiz Research discovered a leak of confidential information from the DeepSeek database. The company stated that its programmers were able to detect the leak "within a few minutes."