India, Feb. 5 -- The finance ministry has issued a directive prohibiting its officers from using AI tools like ChatGPT and DeepSeek for official reasons, citing concerns over data privacy and security.

"It has been determined that AI tools and AI apps (such as ChatGPT, DeepSeek etc) in the office computers and devices pose risks for confidentiality of Govt, data and documents," Reuters reported, citing the internal advisory.

The move aligns India with countries like Australia and Italy, which have imposed similar restrictions on DeepSeek, citing privacy and security vulnerabilities.

Besides, Taiwan has also prohibited government agencies from using DeepSeek's AI model, flagging national information security risks.

Chinese artificial i...