DeepSeek: what the sources say
DeepSeek (Hangzhou DeepSeek AI) · People’s Republic of China
Profile last reviewed 31 May 2026. This record reflects the guide as published; check tautoru.ai/ai/tools/deepseek for the current version.
What this record is. A dated summary of what DeepSeek (Hangzhou DeepSeek AI)’s own terms and the applicable New Zealand rules say about putting different kinds of information into DeepSeek, on each of its plans. Each entry links to the primary source it is drawn from.
What it is not. It is not legal advice, and it is not a certificate that any particular use is safe or approved. It records what the sources say; whether a given use is appropriate for your matter is your own judgment, on your own facts, and — where the stakes warrant it — a question for you and your own advisers. The colours summarise sources; they are not Tautoru’s permission.
The position, by kind of information
1. Public information
Material already published to the world and under no restriction: reported case law, statutes and regulations, regulator and government guidance, public company filings, and published writing. One caveat decides the edge cases — information being publicly available does not take it outside the Privacy Act. A public register full of named individuals is still personal information; treat bulk or re-identifiable personal data as category 5, not as category 1.
Public information carries no confidentiality or privacy constraint, so neither the PRC storage nor the training default creates legal risk for this material; the only live question is accuracy. Permitted on the DeepSeek app.
Sources: Privacy Policy (as at 31 May 2026)
No confidentiality or privacy constraint for public information; the live question is accuracy.
Sources: Open Platform (API) Terms of Service (as at 31 May 2026)
No constraint; a self-hosted open-weight model keeps data in your environment. The live question is accuracy.
Sources: DeepSeek (company facts and open-weight models) (as at 31 May 2026)
2. Internal non-confidential
Material that is neither public nor commercially confidential, and not about any identifiable person: blank templates and precedents, general know-how, and truly hypothetical scenarios.
Low-sensitivity internal material with no confidentiality or privacy constraint raises no breach, even given PRC storage; the question is accuracy and the wisdom of the choice. (Anything actually confidential belongs in categories 3 and up.)
Sources: Privacy Policy (as at 31 May 2026)
Low-sensitivity internal material with no confidentiality or privacy constraint; the question is accuracy.
Sources: Open Platform (API) Terms of Service (as at 31 May 2026)
Low-sensitivity internal material; a self-hosted model keeps it in your environment.
Sources: DeepSeek (company facts and open-weight models) (as at 31 May 2026)
3. Internal confidential (non-privileged)
Confidential information that is not legally privileged — whether it is your customer’s, client’s or a third party’s. It covers client identity and retainer terms, deal and business information, and anything imparted in confidence (by contract, by undertaking, or by the circumstances). If the material is also privileged, use category 4; if you are unsure whether it is confidential, treat it as if it is.
DeepSeek is the cautionary outlier. Its privacy policy states personal information is stored in the People's Republic of China and its terms are governed by PRC law, and the app trains on inputs by default. Read with the PRC framework for state access to data held by PRC companies, that is a loss of practical control a NZ lawyer cannot accept for internal-confidential material. (An inference from the PRC-storage and PRC-governing-law terms, not the contested "sends data to the Chinese government" allegation.) Do not put internal-confidential material into the DeepSeek app.
Sources: Privacy Policy (as at 31 May 2026); Terms of Use (consumer) (as at 31 May 2026); Generative AI guidance for lawyers (as at 31 May 2026)
The Open Platform (API) terms carry no clause promising not to train on your inputs, so under our uncertainty rule we assume it trains, as the app does; and the same PRC storage and PRC governing law apply. Not a home for internal-confidential material.
Sources: Open Platform (API) Terms of Service (as at 31 May 2026); Privacy Policy (as at 31 May 2026); Generative AI guidance for lawyers (as at 31 May 2026)
Self-hosting the open-weight model is materially different and far safer: you run it in your own environment, your data never reaches DeepSeek, and the PRC storage and governing-law terms do not apply. The model is a PRC-origin artifact, so ordinary supply-chain diligence is warranted and the deployment's security is yours; with those in hand, internal-confidential material can be handled with care, the live constraint being your duty of confidence.
Sources: DeepSeek (company facts and open-weight models) (as at 31 May 2026); Generative AI guidance for lawyers (as at 31 May 2026)
4. Legally privileged
Material attracting legal advice privilege or litigation privilege — a subset of confidential information, and the most protected. Privilege belongs to the client, not the lawyer. Whether putting it into a third-party tool affects privilege turns on confidentiality and waiver, addressed in each tool profile and in our guidance; it is not a foregone conclusion. Whether a given document is privileged at all is a question for a qualified lawyer — the safe course is precautionary: if it could be privileged, proceed as if it is.
The DeepSeek app trains on inputs by default and stores data in the PRC under PRC law — it is not a confidential channel, so feeding privileged material into it risks waiver (Evidence Act s 65) and breaches the duty of confidence. Do not put privileged material into the DeepSeek app.
Sources: Privacy Policy (as at 31 May 2026); Terms of Use (consumer) (as at 31 May 2026); Evidence Act 2006, s 65 (Waiver) (as at 31 May 2026); B v Auckland District Law Society [2003] UKPC 38, [2003] 2 AC 736 (as at 31 May 2026)
With no no-training assurance in the API terms and the same PRC storage and governing law, the hosted API is not a confidential channel either; do not put privileged material into it.
Sources: Open Platform (API) Terms of Service (as at 31 May 2026); Privacy Policy (as at 31 May 2026); Evidence Act 2006, s 65 (Waiver) (as at 31 May 2026); B v Auckland District Law Society [2003] UKPC 38, [2003] 2 AC 736 (as at 31 May 2026)
Self-hosted, the data never reaches DeepSeek, so the material stays confidential in fact and privilege is not waived (s 65; B v ADLS). A deliberate protocol and supply-chain diligence on the model are still warranted.
Sources: DeepSeek (company facts and open-weight models) (as at 31 May 2026); Evidence Act 2006, s 65 (Waiver) (as at 31 May 2026); B v Auckland District Law Society [2003] UKPC 38, [2003] 2 AC 736 (as at 31 May 2026)
5. Personal information (Privacy Act 2020)
Personal information means any data about an identifiable living individual. Explicit names are not required. Contextual details alone can identify a client, witness, or opposing party. Inputting this data into AI tools can trigger strict compliance rules. Under Section 11 of the Privacy Act 2020, sending personal data to an overseas cloud service provider solely for processing or safe custody on your behalf is not usually treated as a “disclosure”. You remain responsible for it. The moment an AI provider’s terms allow them to use your inputs for their own purposes (such as training their models), it becomes an official disclosure to an overseas agency, and can trigger information privacy principle 12.
Personal information put into the DeepSeek app is stored in the PRC under PRC law and used to train by default — a cross-border disclosure risk (IPP 12) to a recipient with no comparable-safeguards footing, and an acute foreign-compulsion risk. Do not put personal information into the DeepSeek app.
Sources: Privacy Policy (as at 31 May 2026); Privacy Act 2020 — IPP 12 (Disclosure of personal information outside New Zealand) (as at 31 May 2026)
The hosted API has no no-training assurance and the same PRC storage and governing law; the IPP 12 cross-border and foreign-compulsion concerns are the same. Do not put personal information into the hosted API.
Sources: Open Platform (API) Terms of Service (as at 31 May 2026); Privacy Policy (as at 31 May 2026); Privacy Act 2020 — IPP 12 (Disclosure of personal information outside New Zealand) (as at 31 May 2026)
Self-hosted, nothing is disclosed offshore, so IPP 12 is not engaged and the PRC concerns fall away; personal information can be handled with care under your own security controls (and supply-chain diligence on the model).
Sources: DeepSeek (company facts and open-weight models) (as at 31 May 2026); Privacy Act 2020 — IPP 12 (Disclosure of personal information outside New Zealand) (as at 31 May 2026)
6. Sensitive personal information
Personal information whose misuse carries a heightened risk of harm. New Zealand’s Privacy Act does not define a separate “sensitive” class as the GDPR does in Europe, but in practice this material warrants extra care, senior approval and a privacy impact assessment: health and mental-health information, biometric data (a Biometric Processing Privacy Code applies from 3 August 2026), financial details, criminal history, and information about ethnicity, religious belief, sexual orientation or immigration status. Health information in particular requires a significantly higher standard of protection than ordinary personal information.
As for ordinary personal information, but more so: with PRC storage, PRC governing law and training by default, sensitive personal information must not be put into the DeepSeek app.
Sources: Privacy Policy (as at 31 May 2026); Privacy Act 2020 — IPP 12 (Disclosure of personal information outside New Zealand) (as at 31 May 2026)
No no-training assurance and the same PRC position; do not put sensitive personal information into the hosted API.
Sources: Open Platform (API) Terms of Service (as at 31 May 2026); Privacy Policy (as at 31 May 2026); Privacy Act 2020 — IPP 12 (Disclosure of personal information outside New Zealand) (as at 31 May 2026)
Self-hosted, nothing is disclosed offshore (IPP 12 not engaged); sensitive personal information can be handled with care under a deliberate protocol and your own security controls.
Sources: DeepSeek (company facts and open-weight models) (as at 31 May 2026); Privacy Act 2020 — IPP 12 (Disclosure of personal information outside New Zealand) (as at 31 May 2026)
7. Children’s information
Information about a child or young person. It is also personal information (category 5), and often sensitive (category 6), and it carries additional care because of children’s vulnerability and the weight given to their best interests. Treat it as needing the strongest justification, even where a rule does not strictly compel it.
With PRC storage, PRC governing law and training by default, children's information must not be put into the DeepSeek app.
Sources: Privacy Policy (as at 31 May 2026); Privacy Act 2020 — IPP 12 (Disclosure of personal information outside New Zealand) (as at 31 May 2026)
No no-training assurance and the same PRC position; do not put children's information into the hosted API.
Sources: Open Platform (API) Terms of Service (as at 31 May 2026); Privacy Policy (as at 31 May 2026); Privacy Act 2020 — IPP 12 (Disclosure of personal information outside New Zealand) (as at 31 May 2026)
Self-hosted, nothing is disclosed offshore (IPP 12 not engaged); children's information can be handled with care under a deliberate protocol and your own security controls.
Sources: DeepSeek (company facts and open-weight models) (as at 31 May 2026); Privacy Act 2020 — IPP 12 (Disclosure of personal information outside New Zealand) (as at 31 May 2026)
8. Court-protected material
Material under an independent legal restriction that binds regardless of the tool or plan: name suppression and non-publication orders, confidentiality and sealing orders, statutory automatic suppression (for example in some Family, care-of-children and youth proceedings), and undertakings you have given to the other side. The restriction is the bar, not the technology — if any order or undertaking might apply, proceed with extreme caution.
Suppression orders, confidentiality orders, sealed material and undertakings are independent legal restrictions that can apply regardless of tool or plan; the NZ Law Society's AI guidance is explicit that suppressed material must not be entered into AI tools.
Sources: Generative AI guidance for lawyers (as at 31 May 2026)
An independent legal restriction (suppression, confidentiality order, sealing, undertaking) applies regardless of tool or plan.
Sources: Generative AI guidance for lawyers (as at 31 May 2026)
An independent legal restriction applies regardless of tool or plan — including a self-hosted model; the bar is the order or undertaking, not the technology.
Sources: Generative AI guidance for lawyers (as at 31 May 2026)
What the colours mean
- GreenBased on current provider terms and standard New Zealand frameworks, using this information on this plan is unlikely to breach primary regulatory or privacy restrictions. However, users must still consider any case-specific confidentiality obligations. Sources linked.
- AmberUse is acceptable only if specific safeguards are active. This workflow demands explicit settings adjustments, precise redactions, or specific contractual coverage to remain within legal limits. Sources are linked below.
- RedUsing this information on this plan will breach primary New Zealand regulatory or privacy limits. Proceeding requires a fundamental structural change — such as upgrading to a secure enterprise tier, switching vendors, or utilising a local, self-hosted deployment. Sources linked.
- BlackAn independent restriction — court order, suppression order, statutory prohibition, undertaking — applies regardless of tool or plan.
- Not yet assessedWe have not yet established a sourced position for this cell. It carries no colour rather than a guess (Policy §5.3).
Sources cited in this record
- Privacy Policy — DeepSeek. Perma.cc record (as at 31 May 2026).
- Open Platform (API) Terms of Service — DeepSeek. Perma.cc record (as at 31 May 2026).
- DeepSeek (company facts and open-weight models) — DeepSeek. source (as at 31 May 2026).
- Terms of Use (consumer) — DeepSeek. Perma.cc record (as at 31 May 2026).
- Generative AI guidance for lawyers — New Zealand Law Society. source (as at 31 May 2026).
- Evidence Act 2006, s 65 (Waiver) — New Zealand Legislation. source (as at 31 May 2026).
- B v Auckland District Law Society [2003] UKPC 38, [2003] 2 AC 736 — Privy Council (on appeal from New Zealand). source (as at 31 May 2026).
- Privacy Act 2020 — IPP 12 (Disclosure of personal information outside New Zealand) — Office of the Privacy Commissioner. source (as at 31 May 2026).