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Short answer: DeepSeek’s hosted services can receive your prompts and uploads, account and payment details, and technical and device information. Its February 14, 2025 privacy policy allows personal information to be stored outside your country and used to operate, secure, improve and develop services, including research and model optimization. South Korea’s privacy regulator documented transfers to servers in China and the United States, including processing by Beijing Volcano Engine Technology. Italy’s regulator temporarily restricted processing of Italian users’ data after finding DeepSeek’s explanations insufficient and raising concerns about storage in China under GDPR safeguards.
For a business, that means ordinary hosted DeepSeek should be treated as an external, cross-border processor unless your exact product, contract and configuration provide stronger guarantees. Do not submit trade secrets, credentials, source code, regulated records or identifiable customer information until retention, training, residency, subprocessors, deletion and legal-transfer controls are verified.
What information DeepSeek’s policy covers
The DeepSeek Privacy Policy dated February 14, 2025 describes several broad collection categories. The wording applies to information users provide, information generated automatically while the service runs and information obtained from other sources.
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- Prompts, questions and other text entered into the service.
- Files, images or other material uploaded as part of a request.
- Messages sent when you contact DeepSeek or request support.
For business use, “input” should be read broadly. A prompt that contains a customer name, an incident description, a code fragment, a contract clause or a pasted database row is still business data even if it is sent only to ask for a summary.
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Account and payment information
The policy says DeepSeek collects information supplied when an account is created or maintained, as well as payment information where a paid service is used. The exact fields can vary by product and payment method, so a procurement review should request the current data-field list for the service being purchased.
Technical, device and network information
DeepSeek also describes automatically collected technical information. South Korea’s Personal Information Protection Commission (PIPC) later identified device information, user-network information and information about applications among the data transferred by DeepSeek. These records can reveal how a service is accessed even when a user does not intentionally type personal information into a prompt.
Information from other sources
The policy allows collection from sources other than the user. It does not, by itself, tell a business exactly which external sources are used in every product, so a vendor questionnaire should ask for the categories, purposes and retention periods that apply to the specific account and API arrangement.
Where the data can go
DeepSeek’s policy says personal information may be stored on servers outside the country where the user lives. It does not promise that a particular customer’s prompts remain in that customer’s country. Storage location, access location and the location of a subprocessor are separate questions: a company should ask about all three.
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South Korea’s documented transfers
In an April 24, 2025 release, PIPC said its examination, supported by the Korea Internet & Security Agency, found transfers of personal data to servers in China and the United States. The categories included device information, network information, applications and user input. PIPC named Beijing Volcano Engine Technology as a recipient and reported that DeepSeek described it as a cloud service used for security, user-interface and user-experience functions.
PIPC concluded that transferring user input was unnecessary and reported that DeepSeek blocked that transfer beginning April 10, 2025. That is a dated regulatory finding, not a blanket guarantee about every current product, region or account. A business should obtain a current data-flow diagram and change-notification commitment rather than infer present behavior from the 2025 action.
Italy’s processing restriction
On January 30, 2025, Italy’s Garante issued an urgent order limiting processing of Italian users’ data. The authority said DeepSeek’s answers did not clarify key matters about processing and noted that the policy under review stated that collected data were stored in the People’s Republic of China. The Garante considered that arrangement inconsistent with GDPR security safeguards. The order demonstrates that a regulator can intervene when notices, legal basis or transfer protections are not sufficiently clear; it is not a finding that every use of every DeepSeek product is unlawful in every country.
Does DeepSeek send prompts to China?
The most accurate answer is: the policy permits storage outside a user’s country, and PIPC documented transfers to China and the United States that included user input. PIPC also said DeepSeek blocked the transfer of user input on April 10, 2025 after determining it was unnecessary. Because that finding concerns a particular investigation and date, it should not be converted into a permanent promise for the ordinary chatbot or API.
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Before sending sensitive material, ask DeepSeek to identify the exact service endpoint, processing regions, storage regions, subprocessors, support-access locations and any exception that can move data across borders. Require those answers in current contractual or product documentation, not only in a general privacy notice.
Is confidential company data safe in the hosted service?
“Safe” depends on confidentiality, regulatory duties and the controls your organization requires. The available policy and regulator findings do not establish that ordinary hosted DeepSeek provides customer-controlled regional storage, a universal short deletion window, contractual prohibition on model training or customer-auditable isolation.
Until those points are verified, treat prompts and uploads as data disclosed to an external processor. Keep the following out of an ordinary hosted session:
- Unreleased product designs, trade secrets and confidential contracts.
- Passwords, API keys, private certificates, access tokens and recovery codes.
- Source code or logs containing secrets, proprietary algorithms or exploitable details.
- Regulated records, health information, payment-card data and government identifiers.
- Customer lists, employee files and support tickets containing direct identifiers.
Redaction reduces exposure but does not eliminate it. Removing a name while leaving a unique account number, rare diagnosis or full incident timeline may still make a person identifiable.
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Can DeepSeek use business conversations for model development?
The February 2025 policy says information may be used to provide, maintain, improve and develop services, conduct research, improve safety and security, and train or optimize technology. PIPC separately reported that DeepSeek used publicly available data and user-entered data for AI development and training and initially did not provide an opt-out feature for user input.
Those statements make training use a material procurement question. They do not prove that every product, paid tier or API request is currently used for training. Obtain a product-specific statement that answers:
- Whether prompts, outputs, uploaded files, metadata or support tickets are used for model development.
- Whether an opt-out is available, where it is enabled and when it takes effect.
- Whether opting out covers data already collected or only future requests.
- How deletion propagates through logs, backups, evaluation sets and derived datasets.
- Which subprocessors or personnel can access content for safety, support or quality work.
How long can DeepSeek retain data?
The policy does not promise one universal deletion period. It says retention varies with the amount, type and sensitivity of information, the processing purpose and legal requirements. For service provision, account information, input and payment information may be kept for as long as the account exists, subject to the policy’s qualifications.
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What businesses must check before approval
Use a documented vendor-risk review for the exact DeepSeek product, region and integration. The following matrix turns the main uncertainty areas into evidence requests.
| Review area | Evidence to obtain | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Data residency and transfers | Processing and storage regions; transfer routes; applicable transfer mechanism; change-notice process | Cross-border movement can trigger GDPR, Korean, state or sector-specific obligations. |
| Retention and deletion | Default periods by data type; account-closure timeline; backup and legal-hold rules; deletion certificate | The policy describes variable retention rather than one short period. |
| Model development | Whether customer content is used for training or evaluation; opt-out scope and activation | PIPC reported use of user-entered data for AI development and an initial lack of opt-out. |
| Subprocessors and access | Current subprocessor list; Volcano Engine involvement where applicable; support and security-access controls | Third parties may process technical data or content. |
| Legal basis and notices | Controller/processor roles, records of processing, user notices and international-transfer clauses | Regulators in South Korea and Italy identified transparency and legal-basis concerns. |
| Isolation and auditability | Tenant separation, encryption, key ownership, audit logs, export and incident-notification terms | Technical isolation determines whether a business can demonstrate reasonable safeguards. |
How to use DeepSeek with lower exposure
- Classify the data first. Mark requests as public, internal, confidential, personal, regulated or secret. Permit hosted use only for categories approved by security and privacy teams.
- Minimize the prompt. Remove names, identifiers, credentials, complete documents and unnecessary context. Replace real values with synthetic examples where the task allows it.
- Control the interface. Block unsanctioned browser use through endpoint or web controls, and route approved API traffic through an organization-managed gateway that can redact, log and rate-limit requests.
- Verify product settings. Capture the current training, retention, deletion and regional-processing settings in a dated record. Do not assume a setting in one DeepSeek product applies to another.
- Limit account privileges. Use separate business accounts, least-privilege administration, strong authentication and prompt-access logging. Restrict who can export conversations or change privacy settings.
- Set a deletion process. Define how users request deletion, who approves it, how backups are handled and how the business confirms completion.
- Monitor changes. Review privacy-policy updates, subprocessor notices, new endpoints and regulator actions. Reassess the vendor when the processing purpose or data path changes.
GDPR and other cross-border compliance questions
A company cannot answer “Can we use DeepSeek under GDPR?” from the brand name alone. It must map the particular processing: whose data are in the prompt, which entity determines the purpose, where the data and support access occur, and what transfer mechanism applies.
Depending on the use case, the organization may need a data-processing agreement, records of processing, a lawful basis, transparency notices, a transfer impact assessment, standard contractual clauses or another valid mechanism, data-protection-impact assessment and a process for data-subject rights. Sector rules can add stricter requirements. Italy’s January 2025 order and South Korea’s April 2025 findings show that unclear notices or unsupported transfers can attract regulatory action.
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Legal review should be tied to the actual endpoint and account configuration. A statement that a product is “secure” or “enterprise” is not a substitute for residency, deletion, training and subprocessor commitments that your organization can enforce.
Do not confuse Harness with the ordinary hosted service
DeepSeek Harness has a separate statement saying data are processed and stored locally by default and are not uploaded without consent. That statement is product-specific. It cannot automatically be applied to the ordinary DeepSeek chatbot or API, which must be assessed from its own terms, architecture and settings. Record the exact product name, version, endpoint and administrator configuration in any approval.
A practical go/no-go decision
Proceed only when all answers are documented
- The data categories and destinations are known for the exact product.
- Cross-border transfers have an appropriate legal basis and user notice.
- Training and model-development use is prohibited or deliberately approved.
- Retention and deletion deadlines meet the business requirement.
- Subprocessors, support access and incident duties are acceptable.
- Technical controls prevent accidental submission of prohibited data.
Pause or reject when any of these conditions applies
- The vendor cannot state where prompts are processed or stored.
- The only deletion promise is a general, variable-retention policy.
- Opt-out or training behavior is unclear for the selected product.
- Required transfer safeguards or contractual terms are unavailable.
- Users can paste secrets or regulated records without effective prevention.
The defensible default for an unverified hosted deployment is to use only public or synthetic information while procurement, privacy and security teams complete the review.
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