United Kingdom
What is DeepSeek? The low-cost Chinese AI firm that has turned the tech world upside down
- DeepSeek is a startup founded in 2023 that was the topic of a research paper that found the R1 model showed advanced ‘reasoning’ skills. This included the ability to rethink its approach to a maths problem while, depending on the task, being 20 to 50 times cheaper to use than OpenAI’s o1 model.
- The idea that AI models can be trained on such a reduced budget has impacted the market significantly. This follows warnings from others in the market over the overregulation of the AI industry by the US government, hindering American companies in comparison to China. President Trump has called the development a “wake-up call for our industries that we need to be laser-focused on competing to win”.
- Bill Ackman described DeepSeek as “a Trojan Horse” and said that TikTok, which was temporarily banned in the US earlier this month over national security concerns, “is just a toy by comparison”.
- The app seems unable to respond when asked about alleged wrongdoing and human rights abuses at the hands of the Chinese government.
Surge of Chinese EVs in UK sparks privacy concerns among older consumers—poll
- Research suggests Chinese electric car use had sparked privacy concerns for older consumers, as 41% of people aged 55 and above have fears over data security and privacy risks when buying Chinese products. Of those aged 17-34, 57% are attracted by factors such as innovative technology and affordability.
- The commercial director at Auto Trader has said, “Their ability to offer affordable, high-quality electric vehicles is winning over the younger drivers who will play a vital role in driving the widespread adoption of electric vehicles” and “to succeed, Chinese brands will need to focus on reassuring consumers – through strong safety ratings, data security, expert reviews and customer service – that they are as good as the more trusted traditional manufacturers.”
- There remain concerns over the rise of Chinese electronic vehicles and possible spying using smart electronics and AI software.
United States
A view from DC: New York readies to pass an extraordinary health privacy law
- The New York Health Information Privacy Act is a strong consent-driven framework with broad implications for any organization that operates in New York or collects health-related data of individuals within the state’s borders.
- The bill requires a legal basis for any use of an individual’s regulated health information. One of the legal bases is the strong consent requirement which is an annually renewed signed authorization form, physical or digital, allowing the individual to provide separate authorization for each “category of processing activities.” This consent cannot be conditional.
- Additionally, “regulated health information” is defined based on a two-part conjunctive test. First, data must be “reasonably linkable to an individual or a device.” This may include situations outside a consumer or patient context, such as in the employment relationship. Secondly, any reasonably linkable information collected or processed “in connection with” the “physical or mental health of an individual” is considered regulated health information.
- The bill would empower the NY attorney general to issue clarifying regulations and have broad enforcement authority, including a statutory maximum penalty of USD15,000 per violation or “twenty percent of revenue obtained from New York consumers within the past fiscal year, whichever is greater.”
Europe
Deterring Data Privacy Violations in Big Tech: Why Fines Are Not Enough
- Many of the fines issued by data protection regulators under GDPR over the past five years have been the subject of court appeals or other legal processes.
- Large tech organizations have demonstrated they have the necessary financial resources to embark on these legal battles. This has resulted in huge delays in fines being paid, and the potential courts will eventually reduce or overturn them. The COO & Senior Consultant at BH Consulting said, “It’s a simple costs/benefit calculus – fighting fines in court costs the organization more, but the gains are greater with the potential to be overturned/reduced in the appeals court.”
- There is concern over the deterrent impact of fines on tech firms’ data privacy practices, as the UK Information Commissioner stated the levying of fines may not be an effective way of keeping big tech firms in line, serving only to tie up the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) in litigation.
- The shift in focus of regulators towards personal liability for data protection failings, targeting individual senior executives as well as the organization itself, may prove more fruitful than fines.
Italian data privacy agency probes China’s DeepSeek AI, as EU tests GDPR compliance
- DeepSeek is a Chinese large language model that has become a competitor to OpenAI’s ChatGPT and is said to be extremely fast and low cost.
- DeepSeek AI will have to provide information on the processing of EU data as Garante (the Italian data protection authority) has launched an investigation into Hangzhou DeepSeek Artificial Intelligence and Beijing DeepSeek Artificial Intelligence, giving the companies 20 days to furnish details on how the AI chatbot complies with the European data protection law (GDPR).
- The investigation will look into what data is collected, for what purpose, the data storage and usage to train AI. The investigation began after consumer advocacy groups Euroconsumers and Altroconsumo raised concerns with Garante.
- “DeepSeek raises concerns about compliance with the EU AI Act, particularly regarding data protection and intellectual property,” said Italian MEP Brando Benifei, adding “Europe must remain competitive while enforcing its human-centric, rights-based approach to AI, setting a global standard for ethical and transparent innovation”.
International
- In Egypt, the lower house of the parliament passed an amendment that gives members of the public prosecution office and chief prosecutors across the country the right to conduct surveillance of written, and/or audiovisual forms of communication.
- “Instead of ending violations, authorities are making them permanent and giving abusive security agencies a legal cover to continue [committing] them,” said Amr Magdi, senior researcher at the Middle East and North Africa Division, of Human Rights Watch.
