Finance Ministry advises against using AI tools like ChatGPT and DeepSeek due to confidentiality risks

Finance Ministry has advised all its six departments not to use Artificial Intelligence or any of the AI tools and apps such as, ChatGPT and DeepSeek, etc in official devices as these could pose risks to confidentiality. “It has been determined that AI tools and AI apps in the officer computers and devices pose risks for confidentiality of government data and documents, It is, therefore, advised that use of AI Tools/AI Apps in office devices may strictly be avoided,” a communication from Expenditure Department, dated January 29, said.... “This may be brought to the notice of all employees,” it said while adding that the communication has been issued with the approval of the Finance Secretary.

The communication is internal within the Finance Ministry and there is no clarity whether other Central government ministries or departments have issued similar communication. It may be noted that countries such as Australia and Italy have placed similar restrictions on the use of DeepSeek, citing data security risks. Finance Ministry’s internal advisory is issued at a time, when India is all set to launch its own safe & secure indigenous AI model at an affordable cost. Announcing this last month, Union Minister for Electronics & Information Technology, Ashwini Vaishnaw said that the Indian AI model is a timely step as India is a trusted nation among the comity of nations & therefore it will help India emerge as a more reliable technological powerhouse of ethical AI solutions in the days to come.

Backed by a high-end common computing facility, the India AI mission is now closer to customising indigenous AI solutions for the Indian context using local languages. He said that scientists, researchers, developers and coders are working on multiple foundational models in this regard & with the given pace, The Minister expressed hope that the Indian AI model is likely to be ready within 6 months.

Within 10 months of the launch of India AI Mission, IT Ministry has been able to get an unprecedented response & create a high end & robust common computing facility of about 18,693 Graphic Processing Unit (GPUs). It is about nine times of what Open Source Model DeepSeek has & about two third of what ChatGPT has. Answering queries of the media, the Union Minister said that DeepSeek can get hosted on Indian servers after security checks so that coders, developers & designers can take benefit of its Open Source code.