DHS Bans DeepSeek From Federal Civilian Agencies

The Department of Homeland Security has directed all federal civilian agencies to immediately cease using DeepSeek products and remove them from government systems, including affiliated platforms and third-party services built on the technology. Agencies must purge existing deployments and exclude the tools from procurement channels, with exception requests due to CISA within 60 days.

DHS grounded the mandate in national security threats: potential Chinese government access to DeepSeek infrastructure, user data collection and conversation tracking capabilities, and risk of sensitive government information reaching China. A February 2025 security analysis by NowSecure documented vulnerabilities in DeepSeek’s iOS application, including unencrypted data transfers, weak encryption, insecure local storage, device fingerprinting, and data sharing with ByteDance.

The order applies exclusively to federal civilian agencies under DHS jurisdiction and does not restrict private or consumer use. CISA will evaluate exception requests and offer technical support to agencies facing internal capability constraints.