The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has ordered federal civilian agencies to remove DeepSeek products from their IT systems and to stop purchasing technology from the Chinese AI developer or its affiliates. The directive also covers third-party products and services built using DeepSeek implementations, not just DeepSeek’s own offerings.

DeepSeek, formally Hangzhou DeepSeek Artificial Intelligence Co., Ltd, develops large language models and provides a chatbot, API services, and models tailored for coding and reasoning tasks. The company’s tools gained rapid adoption but drew scrutiny over security risks and the possibility that Chinese authorities could access user conversations.

What the Order Requires

According to the notice published in the Federal Register, affected agencies must:

  • Immediately exclude covered products from procurement, including approved-product lists and purchasing marketplaces
  • Immediately remove covered products from agency IT systems, or formally seek an exception
  • Submit any exception requests within 60 days, detailing justification and proposed risk mitigations, with CISA reviewing and issuing written approvals or denials

The order applies specifically to federal civilian agencies within DHS’s authority and does not constitute a general ban on private or consumer use of DeepSeek. CISA will also provide technical assistance to agencies that lack the internal capability to comply.

Why DHS Acted

DHS cited concerns that the Chinese government could access DeepSeek’s infrastructure, collect personal information, track users, and potentially obtain sensitive government data transferred to China. The order also referenced a February 2025 report from NowSecure that examined DeepSeek’s iOS app and identified multiple security issues, including unencrypted data transmissions, weak encryption algorithms, insecure local storage, user fingerprinting risks, and data sharing with ByteDance, the company behind TikTok.

The order was published in the Federal Register a day after appearing on Public Inspection, formalizing a regulatory posture that DHS had signaled was coming amid broader scrutiny of Chinese-developed AI tools operating on U.S. government networks.