Seoul, Feb. 6 -- The South Korean finance ministry announced plans to block access to the Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) service DeepSeek, citing concerns over data collection, Yonhap News Agency reported on Thursday, citing a ministry official.

"Due to multiple technical concerns raised about DeepSeek from home and abroad, we plan to block access for the service on PCs connected to external networks," the official said.

A day earlier, access to DeepSeek was restricted on computers at South Korea's foreign, trade, and defence ministries.

Additionally, a separate official from the unification ministry said that the ministry intends to implement similar restrictions on AI services, likely including DeepSeek.

"The unification minis...