The Chinese generative artificial intelligence (AI) service 'DeepSeek' has seen a significant decline in daily active users (DAU) from the 200,000 range to around 30,000 after new downloads were blocked domestically due to controversies over personal information leakage.
It appears that many users who rapidly adopted the free service and its excellent performance have either abandoned the service or deleted the existing app. The industry predicts that if the fallout from the suspension of the service prolongs, there is a possibility that DeepSeek may abandon its Korean service altogether.
According to mobile analytics platform MobileIndex on the 23rd, DeepSeek's DAU has sharply decreased this month, dropping to 28,991 on the 15th and 26,304 on the 16th. Although it rebounded to 37,903 on the 17th, it recorded 30,966 again on the 18th, continuing the downward trend.
DeepSeek's DAU surged from 5,135 on the 25th of last month to 191,556 on the 28th of the same month. Within two weeks of its launch, it secured 1.2 million cumulative users in Korea, rapidly rising to become the second most used generative AI service after OpenAI's 'ChatGPT.'
The reasons behind DeepSeek's rapid popularity include its free availability and outstanding capabilities in ▲ Korean language recognition and summarization ▲ and the speed of generating images and text. Early users often provided positive evaluations, saying it was 'as fast and intuitive as the paid version of ChatGPT.'
However, less than a month in, the reason for the significant user attrition from DeepSeek is the security concerns. The Personal Information Protection Commission pointed out the issue of 'excessive information collection' by DeepSeek and has restricted new downloads from domestic app markets since the 15th.
Particularly, concerns have grown due to reports that DeepSeek collects a considerable amount of sensitive data, including users' keyboard inputs, location, and messages. Although DeepSeek has modified some clauses and removed items such as 'keyboard input patterns,' the data processing policy, server location, and retention period remain vague.
In the current situation where new downloads are blocked, existing users are also leaving the service due to concerns over personal information leakage.
Especially, concerns are heightened by the fact that personal information inputted by Korean users into DeepSeek is stored on Chinese servers. This is because the Chinese government has the authority to demand enterprise data stored on domestic servers for national security purposes under the 'Data Security Law.'
A spokesperson for the Personal Information Protection Commission noted, 'We are conducting a reality check and will consider additional administrative measures if necessary.'
According to the Personal Information Protection Commission, DeepSeek's headquarters has stated that it will cooperate with law firm Taepyeongyang to meet the commission's requirements and prepare a personal information processing policy in accordance with domestic laws.
However, the timing of substantial improvement measures and service resumption remains unclear. A representative from an AI startup remarked, 'The lack of transparency in data collection can be fatal even for large platforms, but for a lesser-known foreign startup service, the risk is considerably greater,' adding, 'To retain users, proving a thorough personal information protection system should be the top priority.'