DHS orders removal of DeepSeek from government agency IT systems

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has ordered that products from the Chinese AI startup DeepSeek be removed from federal agency IT systems and barred from government contracting.

The order, which initially went out in July, was published on the Federal Register website Monday. It said DeepSeek’s AI models present “multiple threat vectors,” noting the Chinese government has “extensive authority” to access private infrastructure.

DHS warned that the models can collect personally identifiable information and may “track or digitally fingerprint” users, in addition to potentially containing malware or other security vulnerabilities.

The prompt-and-response process in some of DeepSeek’s most widely used applications could result in the “transfer of sensitive data to the PRC [People’s Republic of China] if used by U.S. government or vendors,” the agency added.

“The transfer of the aforementioned information to the PRC, either independently or in combination with publicly available data, could produce actionable intelligence on U.S. persons and/or government programs,” the order said.

DeepSeek sent shockwaves through Washington and Silicon Valley last year when it released its R1 model.

It drew comparisons to top American models from OpenAI and Google but was developed with reduced capacity chips and at a fraction of the cost, raising fears that China was gaining on the U.S. amid fierce competition between the two superpowers.