China's AI DeepSeek faces House probe over US data harvesting, CCP propaganda

FIRST ON FOX: A powerful House Committee is demanding information from DeepSeek on what U.S. data it used to train the AI model as members accuse the company of being in the pocket of the Chinese government.

In announcing a new probe into DeepSeek, House Energy and Commerce committee members penned a letter expressing concern that companies like it "harvest Americans’ personal and proprietary information and introduce new data security vulnerabilities into the U.S. economy."

"DeepSeek admits to sending Americans’ personal information to servers in China, where it is undoubtedly accessed by officials connected to the Chinese Communist Party," Chairman Brett Guthrie, R-Ky., and Gus Bilirakis, R-Fla., said in a statement. "We are concerned that this close relationship with agents having close connections to our primary adversary jeopardizes our data and our national security."

The company’s privacy policy states that it collects user data and stores it "in secure servers located in the People’s Republic of China." That data entails all questions or chats sent to DeepSeek’s AI model and the answers provided.

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A growing number of states – New York, Texas and Virginia – have banned DeepSeek from government devices. 

It’s reminiscent of the arc of TikTok, where Chinese-owned ByteDance’s video-sharing platform became widely popular in the U.S. before growing skepticism of its data-sharing with the CCP. Now, the app is banned on government devices and may soon be banned entirely in the U.S. 

Several countries, including Canada, Australia, South Korea, Taiwan and Italy, have already blocked DeepSeek due to security risks. 

South Korea in February accused DeepSeek of sharing user data with ByteDance.

The letter expressed concern about how Chinese companies access U.S. technology to advance AI development. Reports have suggested that DeepSeek trained its R1 model by "distilling" outputs from American competitors. 

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Guthrie requested DeepSeek offer the committee a description of the types and sources of data used to train its AI models, including any U.S. proprietary or personal information, and confirm whether data collected by DeepSeek is shared with any Chinese state entity.

The letter also requests details on how the AI system is trained and whether any steps are taken to influence the system output to align with the CCP’s political goals.

The letter requests a response by May 8. 

DeepSeek sent shockwaves across Silicon Valley and the rest of the U.S. as the company appears to be nearly matching the capabilities of chatbots like OpenAI's ChatGPT, but at a fraction of the development cost.

The Energy and Commerce Committee has jurisdiction over AI and data privacy. Last year’s legislation that forced TikTok to divest from ByteDance, or face a ban in the U.S., originated with the committee. Trump has extended TikTok’s deadline twice, buying more time to work out a deal to keep the app operating in the U.S. 

In April, the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party released a report finding that DeepSeek both funneled American data to China and manipulated the results it offers to align with CCP propaganda.