Garante: Italy’s Privacy Authority and DeepSeek Order

A personal-data authority

The Garante per la protezione dei dati personali is Italy’s independent data-protection authority, established in 1997. Its remit concerns rights and freedoms connected to personal-data processing. Its AI interventions therefore need to be understood through the specific data practices and entities addressed by an order. [1]

The scope of the DeepSeek action

In January 2025, the Garante imposed an immediate limitation on processing Italian users’ data by Hangzhou DeepSeek Artificial Intelligence and Beijing DeepSeek Artificial Intelligence. The authority said the companies’ response to its questions was inadequate and opened an investigation alongside the limitation. [2]

The operative description concerns those providers and Italian users’ personal data. It should not be generalized into a worldwide ban on DeepSeek research, a finding about every model’s technical safety or a final outcome of the investigation. [2]