The Australian government has banned the use of Deepseek on all government devices and systems, citing national security risks posed by the Chinese AI startup.

Public servants have been ordered by the government’s Home Affairs Department to stop using the app and delete it from their official devices immediately, following advice from Australia’s intelligence agencies that states DeepSeek poses an “unacceptable risk to Australian Government technology.”

Under the ban, all government institutions apart from the state-owned but corporate-structured Australia Post and Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) will be required to remove Deepseek, and ensure any access already given to the app is blocked.

Following the ban, the Australian home affairs minister, Tony Burke, said: “The Albanese government is taking swift and decisive action to protect Australia’s national security and national interest.

“AI is a technology full of potential and opportunity – but the government will not hesitate to act when our agencies identify a national security risk.”

The government wide crackdown on Deepseek comes after earlier reports that the New South Wales administration had already blocked access to the AI chatbot, with other Australian states looking set to follow suit.

The swift downfall of Deepseek in Australia – where despite the new ban it continues to be the top ranking app on Apple’s store according to Similarweb – may have been fuelled by a report published just days ago by Australian cybersecurity firm, CyberCX.

After a close examination of the app, CyberCX said it was ‘almost certain’ the AI models and app, along with the user data it collects, are subject to direction and control by the Chinese government, as well as producing output aligning with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) strategic objectives and narratives.

To mitigate the threat, the cybersecurity firm recommended that all organisations, especially critical infrastructure organisations, government departments and agencies, restrict access to DeepSeek and advise staff about the potential risks of downloading and using the DeepSeek AI Assistant.

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At the same time, security researchers at Wiz exposed what they called a major security flaw in Deepseek’s system, claiming they were able to access a database on ClickHouse ‘within minutes’ which exposed sensitive user data, including a significant volume of chat history.

Last week, Australia’s science minister, Ed Husic, was among the first Western leaders to raise concerns about the use of the Chinese-owned AI, telling ABC News that there remained serious unanswered questions over the apps “data and privacy management”.

These concerns are being noted elsewhere, too, with the Irish Data Protection Commission and its sister organisation in Italy writing to the owners of Deepseek to clarify how the data of European citizens is being processed and used by the app.

In the US, President Trump has taken a different approach, calling the stratospheric rise of Deepseek a ‘wakeup call’ for US AI firms and big tech companies, which suffered a fall in share prices in the days following its release.