Germany’s Federal Commissioner for Data Protection, Louisa Specht-Riemenschneider, is taking action against the Chinese AI chatbot Deepseek, citing concerns over data privacy and compliance with European regulations. In statements to the Funke-Mediengruppe newspapers, she indicated a potential removal of Deepseek from app stores until it adheres to the standards of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). “China does not have a level of data protection that corresponds to ours” she emphasized, highlighting the risks associated with data transfers to China.
The commissioner also voiced criticism regarding the practices of U.S. tech company Meta. Specifically, she questioned the fairness of using user data from numerous years to train Meta’s AI models, noting that users likely did not anticipate their data being used for this purpose at the time. She suggested a more transparent and readily accessible opt-out mechanism is needed.
Addressing arguments that data protection hinders innovation, Specht-Riemenschneider firmly rejected the notion. She positioned data protection as a “trust guarantee” and even a potential competitive advantage, arguing that legal ambiguity and a fragmented digital regulatory landscape are the true impediments to progress.
Specht-Riemenschneider expressed concern over the increasing dependence on large platforms, observing a scarcity of fully compliant offerings and suggesting that some platforms demonstrate disregard for legal violations. She characterized this dependency as one of the most significant societal challenges.
The Commissioner acknowledged the European Union’s Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act as positive steps, particularly in addressing issues such as online hate speech. She believes these initiatives offer a promising direction towards a more regulated and user-centric digital environment.
