According to the reports, Depseek has disappeared from the Apple App Store of Italy and Google Play Store, with the disappearance as of Wednesday, January 29, 2025.
The block came a day after the country’s data guard dog, the guarantor, filed a privacy complaint asking for clarification about how the chatgpt rival manages the personal data of the users.
Italian users of iPhone and Android have confirmed to Techradar that the new chatbot of AI is not available in application stores to download (see the image below).
The Deepseek website remains available throughout the country for now. The Italians can also use their Deepseek application if they had already downloaded it before the block came into force.
At the time of writing, no official explanations have been shared about the deep block of Italy.
“I don’t know if it is forcing us or not, we ask for information. The company now has 20 days to answer,” said Pasquale Stanzione, head of Italian data surveillance, to the Italian news agency ANSA.
What is certain is that Italy is not the only European country that goes after the new Chinese chatbot of ia about privacy concerns. Belgium and Ireland also filed similar complaints, for fear that Deepseek’s privacy policy can breach GDPR rules.
Can a VPN help avoid the Depseek block?
Despite the best known VPN services for helping users overlook online restrictions, Italians may require additional solutions. Like the US Tiktok prohibition. UU., A VPN is not a single click solution for the Depseek withdrawal.
That is mainly due to the fact that the use of a VPN does not falsify the location of its application store. This means that “finding another way to download the application other than the Apple application or Google Play stores,” explains Eamonn Maguire, head of accounts security in Proton, the provider behind Proton VPN.
Know?
A virtual private network (VPN) is the safety software that encrypts its Internet connections to avoid third -party fissures while falsifying its real location of the IP address. The last ability is what you need to avoid online geographical restrictions.
However, it is surely not impossible, experts suggest doing this with caution.
“This week’s news about data privacy and leaked databases are worrisome. When combined with the company’s possible links with the Chinese government, this is even more worrying,” Maguire told Techradar.
Although Depseek’s privacy policy might seem very similar to that of ChatgPT developed by OpenAI, Euroconsumers, a coalition of five national consumer protection organizations, which includes Italy and Belgium, found “multiple violations of data protection regulations European and national “.
In addition, according to the provider’s own writing, the personal information of the users is stored “in safe servers located in the People’s Republic of China” and will be used to “comply with our legal obligations, or as necessary to perform tasks in public interest , or to protect the vital interests of our users and other people. “
In general, Maguire said: “We recommend that users act with caution when using tools linked to China, particularly when they share confidential or personal commercial information.”
