Lawmakers will introduce a bill Thursday to ban DeepSeek from U.S. government-owned devices over growing alarm the chatbot application is providing user data to the Chinese government, The Wall Street Journal reports.
Rep. Darin LaHood, R-Illinois, and Josh Gottheimer, D-New Jersey, the top legislators on the House Select Committee on Intelligence, wrote the bill.
It mirrors the TikTok ban that Congress passed in April 2024, which went into effect on January 19, 2025, and that President Trump granted a 75-day extension to find a U.S. buyer.
“Under no circumstances can we allow a CCP [Chinese Communist Party] company to obtain sensitive government or personal data,” LaHood said.
“This should be a no-brainer in terms of actions we should take immediately to prevent our enemy from getting information from our government,” Gottheimer said.
DeepSeek has an embedded code than can send user login information to China Mobile, a Chinese state-owned telecommunications company that is banned in the U.S., according to Ivan Tsarynny, CEO of cybersecurity company Feroot Security.
“Our personal information is being sent to China,” Tsarynny said. “There is no denial — and the DeepSeek took is collecting everything that American users connect to it.”
A number of federal agencies, including the U.S. Navy and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, have already blocked DeepSeek over national security and privacy concerns.
Australia excluded DeepSeek from its government computers and devices Tuesday, citing similar data security concerns. South Korea’s defense ministry on Thursday announced it has prohibited the DeepSeek tool from computers used for military purposes. Italy banned DeepSeek in January.
Congress first restricted TikTok from government devices in 2022 as part of a spending bill, over fears that the Chinese government was siphoning data from government officials.
TikTok has repeatedly denied sharing U.S. user data with the Chinese government.
DeepSeek did not respond to a request from The Wall Street Journal for comment.
The DeepSeek chatbot is now the most downloaded app in the U.S.
Lee Barney ✉
Lee Barney, Newsmax’s financial editor, has been a financial journalist for 30 years, covering the economy, retirement planning, investing and financial technology.
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