You would think by now people would realize any data you give to a Chinese company could eventually be accessed by the Chinese government. With DeepSeek the data is so far just been sent to ByteDance which can then be easily sent to the Chinese government if requested:
South Korea’s data protection regulator has confirmed that the DeepSeek chatbot, developed by a China-based artificial intelligence startup, sent the nation’s user data to a third party, the Chinese owner of TikTok, ByteDance, according to officials Tuesday.
The confirmation came a day after the regulator, the Personal Information Protection Commission (PIPC), announced it has temporarily suspended new downloads of DeepSeek in South Korea over concerns about its data collection practices.
“We confirmed DeepSeek communicating with ByteDance,” a PIPC official said.
Hopefully no one is surprised by this announcement from the ROK NIS:
The Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) model DeepSeek provided different answers to sensitive questions depending on the language — for example, defining kimchi’s origin as Korea when asked in Korean, but claiming it is Chinese when asked in Chinese, Seoul’s spy agency said Sunday.
The National Intelligence Service (NIS) said it has also found the AI service provides its advertisers with unlimited access to users’ personal data and such information is subject to submission to the Chinese government upon its request under Chinese law.
The NIS released its assessment of the technological verification of DeepSeek amid growing controversy over security concerns surrounding the service, which has prompted South Korean authorities to block access to the site.
Reminder: if you have ties to the Chinese community (or you're Chinese), of course call it Chinese #NewYear. But if you don't, it's also Korean, Vietnamese, Tibetan, and Mongolian. The more inclusive term is 'Lunar New Year' although technically it's the lunisolar new year
Many folks probably saw @CovertShores' recent find: that China is building multiple special vessels seemingly intended to transfer vehicles ashore in support of a PRC invasion of Taiwan.
