Lawmakers are unveiling a bill to ban DeepSeek from US government devices

• Two House members are unveiling a bill that would ban DeepSeek's AI apps from US government devices.
• The bill is designed to stop China from obtaining sensitive information, just like the TikTok ban.
• "We've seen China's playbook before with TikTok," one of the bill's sponsors said.

Two lawmakers announced on Thursday that they're introducing a bill to ban Chinese startup DeepSeek's AI chatbot from government-owned devices.

The "No DeepSeek on Government Devices Act," sponsored by Democratic Rep. Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey and Republican Rep. Darin LaHood of Illinois, comes amid concerns that US citizens are sharing sensitive information — such as contracts and financial records — with the chatbot.

DeepSeek's sudden emergence shook Wall Street last month. The company has said its new R1 model matches the performance of US rivals such as OpenAI but at a lower training cost. DeepSeek's privacy policy states that user data is stored in China, prompting concerns that the Chinese Communist Party could access US user data.

In a statement, LaHood and Gottheimer referenced research published on Wednesday by the Toronto-based cybersecurity firm Feroot Security. The company said it had found DeepSeek contained a hidden code capable of transmitting user data to CMPassport.com, the online registry for China Mobile, a telecommunications company owned and operated by the Chinese government.

"DeepSeek's generative AI program acquires the data of US users and stores the information for unidentified use by the CCP," said LaHood in a statement to BI. "Under no circumstances can we allow a CCP company to obtain sensitive government or personal data."

Days after the release of its flagship model, DeepSeek became the most downloaded free app on Apple's App Store in the US.

Other countries have taken steps to block DeepSeek. Australia banned DeepSeek from all government devices on Tuesday on national security grounds. Last week, Italy's data protection authority said it had ordered DeepSeek to block its chatbot in the country.

LaHood and Gottheimer's proposal echoes the first steps that led to an effort to prevent TikTok from operating in the US.

"We've seen China's playbook before with TikTok," Gottheimer said in a statement. "We cannot allow it to happen again."

In December 2022, the Senate unanimously approved a bill to block federal employees from downloading or using the app on government devices.

In April 2024, the Biden administration passed legislation banning TikTok unless its parent company, ByteDance, divested the social media app.

That came into force on January 19, and TikTok was briefly unavailable in the US. On January 21, President Donald Trump signed an executive order giving TikTok a 75-day extension to comply with the law.

LaHood, Gottheimer, and DeepSeek did not immediately respond to a request for comment.