Congressman sponsoring DeepSeek ban says China has ‘tried many, many’ times to infiltrate the U.S. via software: ‘We’re right to be vigilant’

DeepSeek rose to popularity last month after it published an AI model the company claimed was as powerful as those made by American firms, but had been developed at a fraction of the cost. The release of such a major technological advance kicked off widespread fears that China may be catching up to the U.S. in the AI arms race. However, given the long-simmering geopolitical tensions between the U.S. and China, DeepSeek’s release also raised the usual concerns about the data-gathering practices of Chinese firms. 

“The sky’s the limit in terms of the potential for national security breaches for the CCP to collect critical information on government activity,” Gottheimer told Fortune in an interview. 

Gottheimer and fellow member of Congress Ray LaHood (R-Ill.) are sponsoring a bill that would seek to immediately ban the popular AI app DeepSeek from any electronic devices owned by the U.S. government. The bill comes on the heels of an analysis that certain elements of DeepSeek’s code were intentionally hidden so they could collect U.S. user data and transfer it to the Chinese-state-owned telecommunications company China Mobile.  

China is “our number one adversary. And they’re aggressive,” Gottheimer said. 

The bill, which Gottheimer said he plans to introduce on Friday, is similar to one from February 2023 that banned TikTok on government-owned devices for the same reason. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott already made such a move at the state level after he issued an order banning DeepSeek from government devices last month. 

“We’ve seen them in many, many instances, whether it’s through software or through devices, try to infiltrate our country to capture data on Americans,” Gottheimer said. “We know that this has been their practice. We’ve seen it in the past and so we’re right to be vigilant here.”

The bill is meant to be an initial step to keep DeepSeek from gaining access to sensitive government data while Congress investigates the app further. Gottheimer, who sits on the House Intelligence Committee with his bill cosponsor LaHood, said he requested a classified briefing on DeepSeek. In that briefing, he hopes to better understand what data DeepSeek may have already collected on U.S. users, its connection to the Chinese government, and what information it could collect from devices that had downloaded it. 

“We’ve gotta investigate this and get to the bottom of what DeepSeek’s done to embed into the code the ability to capture American’s private data and better understand their intentions here,” Gottheimer said. 

Earlier this week, an analysis from Canadian cybersecurity firm Feroot Security found a portion of DeepSeek’s code seemed to be purposefully hidden to add U.S. users to China Mobile’s online registry. “That raised a lot of alarms because those servers are directly linked to China Mobile, which is owned by the government of China,” Feroot Security CEO Ivan Tsarynny told CNBC on Wednesday. 

China Mobile is banned from doing business in the U.S. because of its ties to the Chinese military. Last year, the Federal Communications Commission barred China Mobile from offering broadband service in the U.S. A few years before that, in 2021, the New York Stock Exchange was forced to delist its stock. 

Several other countries have already adopted policies similar to the one Gottheimer and LaHood are proposing. Earlier this week, Australia and certain South Korean ministries banned DeepSeek from their government-owned tech systems. In January, the Italian agency that oversees data protection banned DeepSeek after the information it provided about privacy protection was deemed “totally insufficient.”