A Department of Homeland Security notice published in the Federal Register on 20 October bars civilian federal agencies from buying or using any information technology products and services from Hangzhou DeepSeek Artificial Intelligence and its affiliates, citing the Federal Acquisition Supply Chain Act and a Federal Acquisition Security Council review. The notice reproduces a 26 June exclusion order from DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin, indicating the ban has been in force for months. Mullin said DeepSeek models present "multiple threat vectors": data stored on China-based servers where national security laws compel disclosure, collection of personally identifiable information, and prompt-and-response handling that "may result in the transfer of sensitive data" to the Chinese government. Agencies must exclude DeepSeek from future procurements and remove pre-existing versions; exceptions require a 60-day advance request with compelling justification. DHS encourages agencies to monitor traffic, strengthen logging and data-exfiltration controls, and flag anomalous activity in the interim. DeepSeek is the only Chinese model named, with Moonshot AI (Kimi) and Alibaba (Qwen) also flagged by Washington.

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