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 authority said on Thursday it had blocked Chinese artificial intelligence model DeepSeek over a lack of information on its use of personal data.

ROME (Reuters) - The Chinese artifical intelligence application DeepSeek was not available on Wednesday in Apple and Google app stores in Italy. A notice to customers on iPhone's App Store said the app was "currently not available in the country or area you are in."