US Department of Homeland Security removes Chinese DeepSeek from federal systems

The US Department of Homeland Security decided to remove products of China-based artificial intelligence company DeepSeek from federal agencies' IT systems and ban it from public procurement, citing cybersecurity risks and data privacy concerns.

Security and data privacy restrictions in the US targeting the China-based artificial intelligence application DeepSeek have been elevated to the federal level. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) published the order announced in July in the Federal Register, removing the company's products from federal systems and barring it from public procurement processes.

The process initially began when Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton banned the application on Attorney General's Office devices on January 28, 2025. Subsequently, on January 30, 2025, the House of Representatives blocked official use by staff; and with the Fiscal Year 2026 Intelligence Authorization Act, intelligence agencies such as the CIA, NSA, and FBI were banned from using DeepSeek.

The decision reported by The Hill emphasized that DeepSeek models open the door for the Chinese government to access US data, could collect personal information, and harbor security vulnerabilities. Additionally, the Claude crisis that the US experienced with domestic producer Anthropic showed that the restrictions are applied within a broad framework.