The Department of Homeland Security has issued a sweeping restriction that removes DeepSeek from all federal civilian agencies and their IT systems. In a notice published in the Federal Register, DHS said the AI company's products could result in the "transfer of sensitive data" of US government employees and vendors to the Chinese government. The notice also warned that DeepSeek's models "could contain malware or other security vulnerabilities."
Under the order, civilian agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency and the Federal Communications Commission must exclude any DeepSeek products and remove existing related software. The restriction additionally disallows DeepSeek from entering into any federal government contracts.
The move comes a couple of days after DeepSeek released its latest model, V4.1-Flash-1017, which the company described as "smarter, faster, more efficient." It is not the first time the Chinese AI firm has faced friction with the US government; last year, two US Congressmembers proposed a bill that would ban DeepSeek's chatbot from government devices.