Chinese AI app banned from SA govt devices
The State Government has followed the Federal Government’s move to ban Chinese artificial intelligence program DeepSeek from all networks and devices.
Announced today, DeepSeek has been banned from all SA Government networks and devices.
Under the South Australian cyber security framework the Chinese AI chatbot has been blocked and a directive has been issued to public servants to remove the app from their devices.
The state government previously banned TikTok from government devices in 2023 on the grounds of security and privacy risks.
DeepSeek’s AI chatbot provides similar responses to pre-existing AI competitors like ChatGPT despite being trained at a fraction of the cost and with significantly less computing power.
Its January launch prompted investors to question the valuation of other AI companies and led to a global tech stock rout that wiped almost $US600 billion ($A968 billion) from the market value of AI chip maker Nvidia in a single day.
In a statement, the government said DeepSeek retained significant amounts of data to train its AI model which posed “unacceptable risk to the South Australian Government’s ICT systems”.
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“We have taken swift action to ban DeepSeek on government devices, based upon the best advice from federal security advisors and our Chief Information Officer,” Treasurer Stephen Mullighan said.
“I have approved a directive for DeepSeek to be removed, banned and blocked from any government devices.
“This is a necessary and prudent measure to protect the security of government information and any information held on behalf of the general public.”
Assistant Minister for Artificial Intelligence and The Digital Economy Michael Brown said it was “imperative that we take swift action”.
“As a Government, we must be nimble to the emerging opportunities and threats of AI and we have moved quickly to protect the government and community from the potential threat posed by this platform,” Brown said.
It comes after the Commonwealth banned its workers from accessing DeepSeek on federal government systems and devices.
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“AI is a technology full of potential and opportunity – but the government will not hesitate to act when our agencies identify a national security risk,” Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said.
Australia’s action follows similar moves made by the Taiwanese government, which banned its departments from using DeepSeek’s services because of the risk it poses to information security, and the Commonwealth’s 2023 decision to ban social media platform TikTok from government-issued devices.
Burke said the ban was “country-agnostic and focused on the risk to the Australian government and our assets”.
Federal Employment Minister Murray Watt said that it was up to individuals to decide if they wanted to download and use the DeepSeek app.
“As a government, we’re leaving the choice up to individuals for what apps they have on their phone,” he told Seven on Wednesday.
“But the government has decided it is not secure to have on government phones and people might want to have a think about that.”
Senator Watt also said the government would issue further information to help Australian citizens make that decision.
The Commonwealth has not placed a blanket government ban on similar services offered by American company OpenAI, despite concerns its AI assistant ChatGPT could incorporate sensitive information from prompts into its dataset, and later expose it.
The Department of Home Affairs has suspended access to ChatGPT and Google’s AI assistant from its systems since May 2023, but its then-secretary Mike Pezullo called for a whole-of-government approach on whether or not to deploy the AI technologies.
In September, the federal government released voluntary guidelines on the use of AI in Australia.
– with AAP
