US bans DeepSeek from government agency IT systems over security fears

The US Department of Homeland Security is ordering the removal of DeepSeek products and third-party services using the Chinese AI model from US civilian agency IT systems, according to a notice published Monday (https://www.channelnewsasia.com/business/us-banning-chinese-ai-deepseek-government-agency-it-systems-6472301).

The department is also banning civilian government agencies from acquiring DeepSeek products and third-party services developed using DeepSeek. The order, formally Exclusion and Removal Order #2026-01 under Federal Register docket DHS-2026-0628, was signed on July 24 and made public on October 19 (https://www.tftc.io/deepseek-dhs-exclusion-removal-order-civilian-federal-it).

DHS said DeepSeek models pose “multiple threat vectors” and warned that use by government employees or vendors “may result in the transfer of sensitive data to the PRC”. It added that use by agencies “could produce actionable intelligence on US persons and/or government agencies”, and that “the models themselves may contain malware or other security vulnerabilities” (https://tribune.com.pk/story/2635753/us-banning-chinese-ai-deepseek-from-government-agency-it-systems?amp=1).

The order reaches beyond DeepSeek’s own products to third-party tools built on its implementations, and is described as the first government-wide ban on a frontier AI model (https://aiweekly.co/alerts/dhs-orders-deepseek-stripped-from-us-civilian-federal-it-systems).

Several US agencies, including the Department of Commerce and the Navy, had already barred DeepSeek on government devices, as have the states of New York, Tennessee and Virginia (https://tribune.com.pk/story/2635753/us-banning-chinese-ai-deepseek-from-government-agency-it-systems?amp=1).