Italy's data protection authority, the Garante, said on Thursday it had ordered DeepSeek to block its chatbot in the country after the Chinese artificial intelligence startup failed to address the regulator's concerns over its privacy policy.

Italy’s data protection authority has blocked use of Chinese tech startup DeepSeek’s AI application to protect Italians’ data and announced an investigation into the companies behind the chatbot.

The Chinese artificial intelligence app DeepSeek has been banned from Australian government devices over national security concerns. Political reporter Olivia Caisley has the details from Canberra.

Defence Minister Richard Marles claims the advice on a Chinese artificial intelligence program called DeepSeek is that it would represent an “unacceptable risk” to government networks to have the app.

Australia on Tuesday issued an order restricting the use of China’s DeepSeek generative artificial intelligence app on government devices.