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.

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 said on Thursday it had blocked Chinese artificial intelligence model DeepSeek over a lack of information on its use of personal data.