Italy’s data protection authority has blocked use of Chinese tech startup DeepSeek’s AI application to protect Italians’ data and announced an investigation into the companies behind the chatbot.

Italy's data protection authority said on Thursday it had blocked Chinese artificial intelligence model DeepSeek over a lack of information on its use of personal data. DeepSeek could not be accessed on Wednesday in Apple or Google app stores in Italy,

DeepSeek says its AI model is similar to US giants like OpenAI, despite fears of censorship around issues sensitive to Beijing

We put its chatbot to the test in New York on Tuesday and Wednesday, asking it a battery of questions on sensitive topics that are routinely the subject of censorship within China, including the so-called taboo “three Ts”: Tiananmen, Taiwan and Tibet. We also asked the same questions of OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

DeepSeek has gone viral. Chinese AI lab DeepSeek broke into the mainstream consciousness this week after its chatbot app rose to the top of the Apple

Chinese artificial intelligence startup DeepSeek stunned markets and AI experts with its claim that it built its immensely popular chatbot at a fraction of the cost of those made by American tech tita