US Congress Pushes 'Deepfake Ban Act'... Blocking Access to Government Agencies

The U.S. Congress is pushing a bill to ban the use of the generative artificial intelligence (AI) DeepSeek, developed in China, on government-owned devices.

On the 6th (local time), The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) and CNN reported that Republican Representative Darin LaHood (Illinois) and Democratic Representative Josh Gottheimer (New Jersey) are scheduled to introduce such a bill on the 7th.

Representative Gottheimer said, "It is a matter of course to take immediate action to prevent our adversaries from obtaining information from our government."

Representative LaHood stated, "Under no circumstances can we allow Chinese Communist Party companies to acquire sensitive government or personal data." Gottheimer and LaHood are the top members of the House Intelligence Committee.

If the bill passes, federal government agencies will be required to remove DeepSeek and all apps developed by DeepSeek's parent company, High Flyer, from government-owned devices. In 2022, the U.S. Congress passed a similar bill banning the use of ByteDance's short-form video platform TikTok on government devices for similar reasons.

Currently, some U.S. agencies such as the Navy and NASA, as well as the state of Texas, have blocked DeepSeek due to security and safety concerns.

While major U.S. tech companies (Big Tech) are pouring huge amounts of money into AI model development, DeepSeek has released an AI model with performance comparable to U.S. companies' AI, but at about one-tenth the development cost and with lower power consumption. This achievement has attracted global attention amid the U.S. blocking the export of cutting-edge AI chips to China. As of the 31st of last month, it ranked number one in downloads in 157 countries and regions on the Apple App Store, gaining sensational popularity.

However, security concerns are growing as claims have emerged that DeepSeek contains code that transmits user information to China Mobile, a Chinese state-owned telecommunications company. According to the Associated Press on the previous day, Ivan Charinni, CEO of cybersecurity firm Perut Security, revealed the results of decoding such code, stating, "Our personal information is being sent to China. There is no option to refuse, and DeepSeek collects everything that U.S. users connect to."

Previously, other countries such as Australia, Italy, and Taiwan have already blocked DeepSeek. In South Korea, various government ministries are voluntarily restricting the use of DeepSeek.