Rome, Jan. 30 (LaPresse) – ‘The Garante per la protezione dei dati personali has ordered, as a matter of urgency and with immediate effect, the restriction of the processing of Italian users’ data with regard to Hangzhou DeepSeek Artificial Intelligence and Beijing DeepSeek Artificial Intelligence, the Chinese companies that provide the DeepSeek chatbot service’. This was announced by the Italian Data Protection Authority. ‘DeepSeek is the relational artificial intelligence software, designed to understand and process human conversations, which was recently introduced on the world market and has been downloaded by millions of people in just a few days,‘ the note continues. The restriction measure – adopted to protect the data of Italian users – follows the companies’ communication received today, the content of which was deemed to be completely insufficient. Contrary to the Authority's findings, the companies declared that they do not operate in Italy and that European regulations do not apply to them. The Authority, in addition to ordering the restriction of processing, has at the same time opened an investigation'.