Microsoft Blocks DeepSeek App Due to Data Privacy and Propaganda Concerns

Microsoft has officially banned its employees from using the DeepSeek app. Microsoft Vice Chairman and President Brad Smith confirmed this during a U.S. Senate hearing, citing data security and propaganda risks.

“We don’t allow our employees to use the DeepSeek app,” Smith said, referring to the desktop and mobile app. “We don’t offer it in our store because of those concerns.”

This is the first time Microsoft has publicly admitted to such a restriction, although other organizations and governments have already done so.

DeepSeek’s privacy policy says user data is stored on Chinese servers, subject to Chinese laws, including cooperation with intelligence agencies. The app also censors sensitive political topics, which is a big problem in democratic countries.

Interestingly, Microsoft did offer DeepSeek’s R1 model on its Azure cloud platform earlier this year. But Smith said, “We modified the model to remove the bad side effects before we hosted it on Azure.” The model is open source so developers can self-host and not send data to China—but there’s still risk of misinformation and bad code.

Microsoft has banned the DeepSeek app but not all AI chat apps. Perplexity is available in the Microsoft Store. Google apps like Chrome and Gemini are not available but it’s not clear if they’re blocked.

This is the growing tension between global tech companies and Chinese AI tools as companies balance innovation with national security and ethical AI use.

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