Italy's data protection authority, the Garante, said on Thursday it had ordered DeepSeek to block its chatbot in the country after the Chinese artificial intelligence startup failed to address the regulator's concerns over its privacy policy.

The watchdog blocked access to DeepSeek after the companies that provide the DeepSeek chatbot service allegedly failed to provide it with information about the personal data collected.

Italy’s data protection authority has blocked use of Chinese tech startup DeepSeek’s AI application to protect Italians’ data and announced an investigation into the companies behind the chatbot.