Why the US Navy has banned the use of DeepSeek AI (19459000)
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Artificial intelligence has taken the world by storm as a useful tool for almost every industry. The biggest name on the market right now is DeepSeek A.I., a chatbot developed by a Chinese startup that became the most downloaded app overnight, surpassing OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Despite its popularity and pressure it’s putting on American companies developing their own AI chatbot, the U.S. Navy has essentially ordered every member in its service to avoid downloading or using the app. CNBC reports that on January 24, 2025 the Navy emailed their members about its “potential security and ethical concerns associated with the model’s origin and usage.”
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DeepSeek A.I. The software is open-sourced, which means that any developer can use the program, and the Navy has strict rules against such software. The Navy isn’t against A.I. The U.S. military actually has some pretty scary A.I. Officials are opposed to open source applications, particularly those from Chinese sources. The Navy issued a directive which states, “Commercial AI language models are not recommended for operational use cases until security control requirements have been fully investigated, identified and approved for use within controlled environments.”
The government views China as the leading threat to cyber-security, as evidenced by TikTok’s ban in the U.S. It is so bad that Darin LaHood (R-Ill.) and Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) are introducing to the House of Representatives a bill that would ban DeepSeek A.I. Downloading DeepSeek A.I. on government devices is prohibited. The U.S. aren’t the only countries looking to ban A.I. model, though. Advertisement
Has anyone else warned against DeepSeek AI before?
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While many TikTok users questioned the U.S. government’s motives toward the social media app, saying it was a threat to national security but wouldn’t release any evidence, there concrete evidence found in the A.I. app. A hidden code found within DeepSeek that would send login data to China Mobile, a telecommunications company that the U.S. Federal Communications Commission has barred from operating within the U.S. since 2019. It’s not just the U.S. Navy prohibiting its personnel from downloading the app. Shortly after the Navy sent out the email about A.I., NASA blocked DeepSeek from its employee devices. It goes further than that, though, with other countries blocking the app from their devices, as well.
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South Korea has a general ban on A.I. programs, including ChatGPT and now has a third-party service investigating how data is managed on DeepSeek. Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power already banned DeepSeek on its employees’ devices in January. Australia, Italy, and Taiwan have followed suit, prohibiting or limiting their federal employees from using the app. It can be disconcerting for governments to see that an app owned by an adversarial nation requires access to loads of personal information. It doesn’t just collect user birthdays, phone numbers, and passwords.
DeepSeek’s privacy policy states that it requires the user’s IP address, operating system, and keystroke patterns. An IP address on its own should be carefully protected because with that, an outside source can track your online activity, restrict access to websites, and carry out a DDoS attack.
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