“We confirmed DeepSeek communicating with ByteDance,” the South Korean data protection regulator told Yonhap News Agency.

The country had already removed DeepSeek from app stores over the weekend over data protection concerns.

The Chinese app caused shockwaves in the AI world in January, wiping billions off global stock markets over claims its new model was trained at a much lower cost than US rivals such as ChatGPT.

Since then, multiple countries have warned that user data may not be properly protected, and in February a US cybersecurity company alleged potential data sharing between DeepSeek and ByteDance.

DeepSeek’s apparent overnight impact saw it shoot to the top of App Store charts in the UK, US and many other countries around the world – although it now sits far below ChatGPT in UK rankings.

In South Korea, it had been downloaded over a million times before being pulled from Apple and Google’s App Stores on Saturday evening.

Existing users can still access the app and use it on a web browser.

The data regulator, the Personal Information Protection Commission (PIPC), told South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency that despite finding a link between DeepSeek and ByteDance, it was “yet to confirm what data was transferred and to what extent”.

Critics of the Chinese state have long argued its National Intelligence Law allows the government to access any data it wants from Chinese companies.

However, ByteDance, headquartered in Beijing, is owned by a number of global investors – and others say the same law allows for the protection of private companies and personal data.

Fears over user data being sent to China was one of the reasons the US Supreme Court upheld a ban on TikTok, which is owned by ByteDance.

The US ban is on hold until 5 April as President Donald Trump attempts to broker a resolution.

Cybersecurity company Security Scorecard published a blog on DeepSeek on 10 February which suggested “multiple direct references to ByteDance-owned” services.

“These references suggest deep integration with ByteDance’s analytics and performance monitoring infrastructure,” it said in its review of DeepSeek’s Android app.

Security Scorecard expressed concern that along with privacy risks, DeepSeek “user behaviour and device metadata [are] likely sent to ByteDance servers”.

It also found data “being transmitted to domains linked to Chinese state-owned entities”.

On Monday, South Korea’s PIPC said it “found out traffic generated by third-party data transfers and insufficient transparency in DeepSeek’s privacy policy”.

It said DeepSeek was cooperating with the regulator, and acknowledged it had failed to to take into account South Korean privacy laws.

But the regulator advised users “exercise caution and avoid entering personal information into the chatbot”.

South Korea has already followed a number of countries such as Australia and Taiwan in banning DeepSeek from government devices.

The president signed an executive order on Monday, to kickstart the process, saying the fund would soon be “one of the biggest”.

More than 90 countries have sovereign wealth funds, investing surplus income for the benefit of future generations. However, the US currently runs a budget deficit.

“We’re going to create a lot of wealth for the fund,” Trump told reporters, without clarifying where the money would come from.

When Trump first floated the idea of a sovereign wealth fund during his election campaign, he suggested it could be funded by “tariffs and other intelligent things”.

He has already announced plans to impose tariffs on imports from America’s three biggest trading partners – China, Mexico and Canada.

But on Tuesday the levies on Mexico and Canada were paused for 30 days.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the fund would be set up within the next 12 months and that the plan was to monetise assets currently owned by the US government “for the American people”.

Saudi Arabia and Norway have two of the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds, supported by the proceeds of fossil fuel sales. They invest in companies and projects around the world.

President Trump has previously said that a US sovereign wealth fund would finance “great national endeavours” including infrastructure projects such as airports, roads as well as medical research.

After signing the executive order for the fund’s creation, he also floated the idea that it could buy up the social media platform TikTok.

The Chinese-owned social media company was briefly taken offline in the US last month, over national security concerns, after the previous administration ordered its owner to sell its US operations or face a ban.

Trump has delayed the ban, promising to find a solution, after TikTok’s US users protested at its shutdown.

“We’re going to be doing something, perhaps with TikTok, and perhaps not,” Trump said. “If we make the right deal, we’ll do it. Otherwise, we won’t… we might put that in the sovereign wealth fund.”

However, the president has also recently said that technology giant Microsoft was in discussions to acquire TikTok and that he would like to see a “bidding war” over the sale of the social media app.

Other big names in tech, including Larry Ellison and Elon Musk, have also been floated as possible buyers.

Congressman Mike Waltz, a Florida Republican, said Trump would intervene if the Supreme Court upholds a law that bans the platform in the US unless it is sold by 19 January.

In its last week, the Biden administration is also looking for ways to prevent TikTok suddenly disappearing, reports NBC News.

Chinese owner ByteDance has said it plans to shut off the app for its 170 million US users by Sunday.

“We will put measures in place to keep TikTok from going dark,” said Waltz on Thursday.

He noted that the law allows a 90-day extension for ByteDance if significant progress has been made towards a sale.

“Essentially that buys President Trump time to keep TikTok going,” said Waltz.

A day earlier the incoming national security adviser hinted on Fox News that Trump was planning an executive order in an effort to suspend the ban.

However, it is unclear whether any such measure could circumvent a law passed by Congress.

The app has been banned on national security grounds, because of concerns that its data could be collected by the Chinese Communist Party.

But according to the New York Times, Trump has invited the chief executive of TikTok, Shou Zi Chew, to attend his presidential inauguration next Monday, sitting in a position of honour on the dais.

Trump has previously asked the Supreme Court to delay the ban – which would go into effect one day before he is sworn into office – so he can seek a “political” solution.

Congress passed a bipartisan law last year that gave TikTok’s owner, ByteDance, nine months to find a US-approved buyer or face a ban of the platform in the United States.

The legislation does not forbid use of the app, but would require tech giants such as Apple and Google to stop offering it and inhibit updates, which analysts suggest would kill it over time.

President Joe Biden signed the bill into law last April as part of a package that provided aid to Ukraine and Israel.

But NBC News reports that Biden, too, has been considering ways to keep the app available if a ban goes into effect.

Under that plan, they would defer the issue, according to three people familiar with the matter who spoke to NBC.

TikTok and ByteDance deny being linked to the Chinese government. They have also ruled out a sale.

The Supreme Court heard TikTok and Bytedance’s arguments against the law last week.

A decision is expected any day.

Both Biden and Trump have reversed their stances on the platform.

Trump attempted to ban the app during his first term in office, but said on the campaign trail this year that he would protect it.

In a decision issued on Friday, the court rejected TikTok’s request, calling it “unwarranted”.

The court’s – unsigned – order said TikTok had not identified precedents where a court, “after rejecting a constitutional challenge to an Act of Congress”, stopped the Act from being implemented until a Supreme Court review is sought.

Lawyers for TikTok and its owner ByteDance had requested the injunction after a panel of three judges on the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit sided with the US government and rejected their challenge to the law.

In the request, the lawyers had asked for a “modest delay” in enforcing the law so the Supreme Court could review the case and the incoming Trump administration could “determine its position” on the matter.

The statute, which was signed by President Joe Biden earlier this year, requires ByteDance to sell TikTok to an approved buyer due to national security concerns or face a ban in the US.

A TikTok spokesperson said after the ruling that the company plans to take its case to the Supreme Court, “which has an established historical record of protecting Americans’ right to free speech”.

It is unclear if the Supreme Court will take up the case, though some legal experts have said they expect the justices to weigh in due to the types of novel questions it raises about social media, national security and the First Amendment.

TikTok is also looking for a potential lifeline from President-elect Donald Trump, who promised to “save” the short-form video platform during the presidential campaign.

During his first term, he unsuccessfully tried to ban TikTok.

The US says it sees TikTok as a national security risk because ByteDance could be coerced by Chinese authorities to hand over US user data or manipulate content on the platform for Beijing’s interests.

TikTok denies those claims and argues that the government’s case rests on hypothetical future risks instead of proven facts.If the law is not overturned, the two companies say the popular app will shut down by January 19, just a day before Trump takes office again.

More than 170 million American users would be affected, the company said. Most of the users belong to the younger segment of the population.

The US Justice Department had opposed TikTok’s request for a pause, saying in a court filing this week that the parties had already proposed a schedule that was “designed for the precise purpose” of allowing a Supreme Court review of the law before it took effect.

Also on Friday, the chairman and top Democrat on a US House of Representatives committee on China told the CEOs of Google-parent Alphabet and Apple that they must be ready to remove TikTok from their US app stores on January 19.

The social media company had hoped a federal appeals court would uphold its argument that the law was unconstitutional.

TikTok’s lawyers told the court in September that a ban would have a “staggering” impact on the free speech of its 170 million US users.

But the court ruled the law “was the culmination of extensive, bipartisan action by the Congress and by successive presidents.”

The law was “carefully crafted to deal only with control by a foreign adversary, and it was part of a broader effort to counter a well-substantiated national security threat posed by the PRC (People’s Republic of China),” the ruling continues.

The US wants TikTok sold or banned because of what it says are its owners links to the Chinese state – links TikTok and parent company Bytedance have always denied.

TikTok and its parent company may now choose to take their ongoing fight against the law to higher courts in the US – including to the Supreme Court, its highest authority.

Donald Trump’s victory in the 2024 US Presidential Election may also present a lifeline for the app.

Despite unsuccessfully attempting to ban TikTok during his first term in 2020, he said in the run-up to the November elections he would not allow the ban on TikTok to take effect.

TikTok and ByteDance have previously stressed that they will not sell the platform.

The US Court of Appeals’ District of Columbia circuit striking down TikTok’s petition to review the law means that the platform is set to be made unavailable to US users from 19 January.

Trump had joined the platform during his campaign and claimed that curtailing TikTok would unfairly benefit Facebook.

Meta, which owns Facebook as well as Instagram, WhatsApp and Threads, has sought to build rivals to TikTok’s short form videos within its own apps, and made changes that users have likened to TikTok amid questions over the app’s US future.