South Korean authorities have removed the Chinese smart assistant DeepSeek from local app stores since mid-February, by a decision of the Personal Information Protection Commission (PIPC).

The committee noted that the resumption of downloads is contingent on the Chinese company's compliance with local data protection laws, while existing users can still run the app, and the app has been banned on government and military devices in the country.

It is worth noting that DeepSeek entered the Korean market earlier this month, establishing its local presence on the tenth of February.

The company later admitted that it did not adequately observe Korean data protection laws when launching the service globally. However, the company confirmed its commitment to cooperate with local authorities to address concerns.

The Korean PIPC explained that investigating the work of the DeepSeek app may take some time. For comparison, it took six other AI applications to examine, including.