Berlin Regulator Orders Apple, Google to Remove DeepSeek

A German data regulator on Friday ordered Apple and Google to remove the Chinese artificial intelligence DeepSeek app from online stores over non-compliance with European privacy and digital service rules.

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The Berlin Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information classified the Chinese application as “illegal content.”

“Chinese authorities have far-reaching rights to access personal data,” Berlin Data Protection Commissioner Meike Kamp said. “DeepSeek users don’t have enforceable rights and effective legal remedies available to them in China, like they’re guaranteed in the European Union,” he said, according to machine translation of remarks made in German.

The Berlin regulator acted after DeepSeek parent company Hangzhou DeepSeek Artificial Intelligence ignored a request to stop data transfer to China or self-remove the app from the platforms.

The company, which does not have an office in Europe, said it collects personal data such as user text, chat histories and location, and that it transmits the data to Chinese processors and stores them on servers in China.

Commercial transfers of data outside of trading bloc members are governed by a complex legal system requiring foreign companies to offer analogous privacy protections to those enforced by the European Union. Assurances from a foreign company that it will do so must be backed by a host country legal regime that doesn’t breach European privacy standards – a standard that has led the U.S. tech companies to repeatedly fall into a legal grey zone (see: Trans-Atlantic Commercial Data Flows Could be Imperilled).

Given American difficulties in satisfying European privacy demands, it’s highly improbable that authoritarian China could come even close. “The EU has not issued an adequacy decision for China,” Berlin regulators noted, using an EU term for an official finding that a foreign country offers “essentially equivalent” protections.

“The transfer of user data by DeepSeek to China is illegal. I have therefore informed Google and Apple, as the operators of the largest app platforms, about the violations and expect a timely check for a blocking,” Kamp said.

Kamp invoked the Digital Services Act, a European regulation governing online markets and content, to force Apple and Google to take down the app. DeepSeek did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Berlin in this case follows Italy, whose data regulator in January ordered DeepSeek to block the chatbot inside country borders. DeepSeek removed its app from Italian app stores, reported Reuters. Asian governments have also acted against the app by banning it from official devices (see: Asian Governments Rush to Ban DeepSeek Over Privacy Concerns).

The company behind DeepSeek debuted its R1 reasoning model in January, claiming it was developed at one-third of the cost required by its U.S. counterparts such as ChatGPT.