Berlin’s Commissioner for Data Protection, Meike Kamp, has requested that Google and Apple remove the DeepSeek AI app from the application stores because of GDPR violations.
Meike Kamp, the commissioner for data protection, claims that Hangzhou DeepSeek Artificial Intelligence in Beijing illegally collects German user’s data and transfers it to servers in China for processing.
According to GDPR and specifically Article 46(1), any personal data collected by individuals in the European Union has to be protected according the standards set forth by the regulatory act.
China, however, has lax data protection laws and a long history of excessive requests for data access from private entities. It is therefore unlikely that DeepSeek’s security will meet EU standards due to the lack of legal safeguards.
The company has no branch in the European Union (EU), The commissioner explains
The service is available to users in Germany and other places through apps on the Google Play Store or Apple App Store that have German-language descriptions. It can also be used in German. The platform’s sudden popularity was soon tarnished when serious cybersecurity issues exposed insecure practices. However, the platform continues to enjoy popularity within the global AI community.
DeepSeek AI has been downloaded 50 million times on Google Playand has thousands of ratings in Apple’s App Store.
Kamp asked DeepSeek on May 6, this year, to remove its apps from German app stores. The company refused.
The Berlin authorities have now used Article 16 of the Digital Services Act to report illegal content to the respective platforms, in this instance, Apple and Google.
Both tech giants must now review the report of the commissioner and decide if DeepSeek AI should be removed from their store.
Although the request was submitted by a state-level regulator and not the German government, there is coordinationwith other regulators from Baden-Wurttemberg, Rhineland-Palatinate, and Bremen, as well as the Federal Network Agency (Bundesnetzagentur).
BleepingComputer contacted Google Apple and DeepSeek for comment on the current situation. We will update this article when we receive a response.
Eight Common Threats for 2025
Cloud attacks are becoming more sophisticated but attackers still use simple techniques to succeed. This report, based on Wiz’s detections of thousands of organizations, reveals eight key techniques used by cloud-fluent threats.
