The Department of Homeland Security just banned the use of DeepSeek’s technology across much of the federal government.

In a notice posted on Monday, the DHS ordered federal civilian agencies like the Department of State to remove any products from the Chinese AI lab DeepSeek, and any third-party services that rely on DeepSeek AI models.

“DeepSeek’s account generation process collects personally identifiable information (PII) and may also track and digitally fingerprint users,” Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said in an accompanying note from July that was made public only on Monday. The administration fears that this sensitive data collected by DeepSeek could then be transferred to the Chinese government. The models themselves can also include malware, Mullin warned.

DeepSeek use has already been restricted across several parts of the government. The Chinese AI lab caused mayhem in the American AI industry early last year with the release of its R1 model, which boasted high capabilities at a fraction of the cost of its American counterparts. While the stock market was busy experiencing a trillion-dollar wipeout over the release, the U.S. government deemed DeepSeek a “profound threat” to national security, and both the Navy and the Department of Commerce were quick to instruct personnel not to use DeepSeek’s models.

American AI models still lead Chinese AI development, but that gap is now shrinking. The first signal of this Chinese catch-up was delivered by none other than DeepSeek’s R1 last year, and fellow Chinese AI lab Moonshot reignited these fears in July with Kimi K3.

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