Virginia bans the use of the Chinese AI DeepSeek on any government device or network

Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced Tuesday that the Chinese AI website and app DeepSeek is banned on any government electronic device, as well as other operating systems.

Virginia joins the list of organizations and governments that have banned the use of the Chinese artificial intelligence platform, which opened to the public at the end of January.

DeepSeek offers a chatbot for assistance similar to OpenAI's ChatGPT. However, experts are concerned about the security breaches that may come with using DeepSeek due to its invasive privacy policy.

DeepSeek AI also maintains its physical servers in China, which makes all the content they store vulnerable to the Chinese government. Local laws allow Beijing to access that data without the need for a court order.

In announcing his Executive Order 46, Youngkin argued that "China's DeepSeek AI poses a threat to the safety and security of the citizens of the Commonwealth of Virginia." He added that his administration must "continue to take steps to safeguard our Chinese Communist Party operations and information. This executive order is an important part of this initiative."

The order states that no state employee may download or use the DeepSeek AI application on any government-provided device, including cell phones, laptops or other devices capable of connecting to the Internet provided by the state. The order further prohibits downloading or accessing the DeepSeek AI app on state networks.

The measure taken Virginia follows in the footsteps of that of the Australian government. The U.S. Congress also decided to ban the artificial intelligence platform, in the same way it did with TikTok.