Chinese artificial intelligence company Deepseek may face more actions from national regulators in the future, Europe’s privacy watchdog has said.
The European Data Protection Board (EDPB) underscored the European Union’s concerns about the rising popularity of the relatively cheap AI start-up.
National privacy regulators discussed Deepseek at a monthly meeting on February 11, after Italy blocked the chatbot over lack of information on its use of personal data and as enforcers in France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and other countries questioned DeepSeek on its data collection practices.
“Several DPAs [data protection authorities] have already started actions vis-à-vis Deepseek and there may be further actions in the future,” a spokesperson for the EDPB said after the meeting, Reuters reported.
The concerns have prompted the EDPB to broaden the scope of a task-force, created in April 2023 to foster co-operation and exchange information on enforcement related to AI.
The task-force had originally focused only on Microsoft MSFT.O-backed OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
“In addition, the EDPB members underlined the need to co-ordinate DPAs’ actions regarding urgent sensitive matters and for that purpose will set up a quick response team,” the EDPB spokesperson said.
Europe has been in the forefront of protecting its citizens’ privacy rights while its General Data Protection Regulation, which came into effect in 2018, has been regarded the toughest privacy law in the world.
