DHS Orders Federal Civilian Agencies to Remove DeepSeek AI Products

The order requires all civilian agency information technology systems to remove any products affiliated with DeepSeek, including third-party services developed using the app. It also prohibits those agencies from buying DeepSeek products and services going forward. DHS invoked the 2018 Federal Acquisition Supply Chain Security Act after a review by the Federal Acquisition Security Council.

DHS warned that the technology could be used to “track or digitally fingerprint” users and may lead to the “transfer of sensitive data to the People’s Republic of China if used by U.S. government or vendors.”

The U.S. crackdown on DeepSeek has been building since 2025, when the company released its R1 model. Despite being trained on less powerful chips and at a fraction of the cost of some competing models, the open-source system outperformed models from OpenAI and Anthropic in several complex tests, SiliconANGLE reported. That year the free DeepSeek app was downloaded by millions of Americans, drawing concern from the U.S. government; officials considered a full ban of the app, and one cybersecurity expert said DeepSeek's privacy policy was not “worth the paper it is written on.”

The Commerce Department banned DeepSeek from government devices, and the U.S. Navy directed its members not to use the model because of potential security concerns. New York State barred DeepSeek from government devices and networks, citing “serious concerns” about potential data privacy and censorship risks posed by the app.

DeepSeek recently released its latest AI model, V4.1 Flash-1017. The upgraded model promised faster performance and improved reasoning and coding capabilities, and early reports suggested it could compete with some of the most advanced American AI systems, according to SiliconANGLE.