The Department of Homeland Security has ordered US civilian federal agencies to remove DeepSeek products from their IT systems and stop buying them, under a 2018 supply chain security law. The order covers third-party tools built on DeepSeek’s models, and cites the risk that sensitive data could be shared with the Chinese government.
US government agencies must take DeepSeek off their computers and stop buying its tools, under a new Homeland Security order. The department posted a notice of the order on the Federal Register website on Monday.
The ban applies to civilian agencies. It also covers tools from other firms that are built on DeepSeek’s AI models. It was issued under a 2018 law that lets the government cut risky suppliers out of its buying.
The order is dated 24 July and was signed by Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, Bloomberg reported. It also bars DeepSeek from taking part in federal contracts.
In the order, the government said DeepSeek collects a lot of user data that could be passed to Beijing under Chinese security laws, according to Bloomberg. The department also said the models pose “multiple threat vectors” and may hide malware or security flaws, Reuters reported.
The Chinese embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to Bloomberg’s request for comment. DeepSeek did not comment in either report.
Some parts of the government had already limited the Chinese startup’s tools. A Pentagon IT agency blocked its chatbot in January 2025, and the Commerce Department and the Navy have banned it on work devices. New York, Tennessee, and Virginia have taken similar steps.
The move follows months of pressure on Chinese AI firms in Washington. In June, the White House held off on blacklisting DeepSeek and more than 100 other Chinese firms, even after a panel of officials cleared them for a US trade blacklist.
US officials have also accused Chinese AI labs of copying US models through a technique called distillation. In February, OpenAI told US lawmakers that DeepSeek had used the method to build its R1 chatbot, Bloomberg reported.
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