South Australia bans Chinese AI program DeepSeek across all government devices

The SA government has revealed its stance on a controversial AI chatbot, amid global cyber security concerns.

The state government has moved quickly to ban DeepSeek, the Chinese artificial intelligence chatbot from all government networks and devices from Wednesday morning.

It comes after Australia’s Department for Home Affairs issued a directive to ban the AI platforms’ use across all federal government employees and networks on Tuesday, after determining DeepSeek posed an unacceptable risk to the government’s technology estate.

Under South Australia’s cyber security framework, a directive has now been issued to all public servants to remove the app from their devices.

On Wednesday, Assistant Minister for Artificial Intelligence Michael Brown said the banning of DeepSeek was something the government had considered when it became available in Australia a week ago.

Chinese AI platform DeepSeek has been banned across the SA Government network and devices.

“It’s certainly something that we’ve been considering ever since the issues of accessed information by DeepSeek AI were first raised, but it’s obviously a decision that the Treasurer made today,” he said.

“We know that South Australia is already a world-leading jurisdiction when it comes to not only the regulation, but the promotion of artificial intelligence technologies.

“As a government, we are absolutely determined to see AI flourish in South Australia, however, we also have an obligation to the people of SA to make sure that the confidential information of their government, but also their personal information is protected as much as possible.”

DeepSeek AI’s launch last week rocked the US tech stock market, amid concerns about censorship and data security.

SA’s ban does not extend to devices of private citizens, nor does it stop state government employees from downloading and using it on their personal devices, however, they will be “strongly discouraged” from doing so.

Treasurer Stephen Mullighan gave the directive to ban DeepSeek.

Treasurer Stephen Mullighan approved the directive based on the “best advice” from federal security advisors and the Chief Information Officer.

“We are of course very keen to embrace the opportunities that new technologies can provide the government, in improving public services and helping our activities become more productive,” he said.

“But we are also really aware of the risks that when there are these very large companies based overseas that have got sometimes, reputations for the unauthorised access of information and the misuse of that information.

“I would also urge members of the general public who use DeepSeek to be vigilant and not upload any personal information they may not want to enter the public sphere.”

Mr Mullighan also urged members of the public to stay vigilant when using the AI app.

The banning of DeepSeek also follows the state government’s decision to ban government employees from the Chinese video-sharing and social media platform TikTok in 2023, also stating security and privacy concerns as the reason for doing so.