Germany has declared that the Chinese AI app DeepSeek contains illegal content due to significant security and data protection issues. German data protection authorities, led by Commissioner Meike Kamp, have determined that DeepSeek fails to meet the country’s and the European Union’s stringent data protection standards. Specifically, DeepSeek has not provided sufficient evidence that German users’ data is safeguarded in China to a level equivalent to that required under EU law.
According to regulators, DeepSeek stores and processes large amounts of personal data—including user queries and uploaded files—on servers located in China. This arrangement raises concerns because Chinese authorities have broad legal powers to access personal data held by Chinese companies, which is incompatible with EU data privacy protections. As a result, the German government has classified the app as containing illegal content due to its insecure handling of user data and has instructed Apple and Google to remove DeepSeek from their app stores in Germany.
DeepSeek was previously asked in May 2025 to either comply with EU data protection requirements or withdraw its app voluntarily, but the company did not take action. This regulatory crackdown follows similar actions by Italy, which removed DeepSeek from its app stores earlier in 2025, and the Netherlands, which has banned the app on government devices. There are also reports that DeepSeek is aiding Chinese military and intelligence operations, further raising concerns among Western governments.
