Italy's data protection authority, the Garante, said on Thursday it had ordered DeepSeek to block its chatbot in the country after the Chinese artificial intelligence startup failed to address the regulator's concerns over its privacy policy.

The watchdog blocked access to DeepSeek after the companies that provide the DeepSeek chatbot service allegedly failed to provide it with information about the personal data collected.

Italy's data protection watchdog has blocked Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) firm DeepSeek's service within the country, citing a lack of information on its use of users' personal data.