The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has ordered the removal of products from Chinese AI company DeepSeek from the information systems of federal civilian agencies. According to an official notice published on October 19, 2026, agencies must remove DeepSeek products present in their IT systems, as well as third-party services built on the model. At the same time, civilian agencies are completely prohibited from purchasing DeepSeek products or third-party services built on DeepSeek going forward. According to Reuters, this is the US government's most sweeping action against Chinese AI models at the scale of federal civilian agencies, with removal and a purchase ban introduced simultaneously. The notice also states that agencies are required to take interim cybersecurity measures.

The order's two requirements

The published order works in two directions: removing existing products and banning new purchases. Under the first requirement, federal civilian agencies must identify DeepSeek products used in their information systems and remove them from the systems. This requirement applies not only to products under the DeepSeek brand, but also to third-party services built on the model. That is, if an agency is using a service supplied by another company but with the DeepSeek model working inside it, that too must be removed — the ban targets the model itself, not the brand.

Carrying out the order first requires agencies to identify DeepSeek-related components in their systems: which programs, services, or integrations rely on the model must be audited. Only then does the removal phase begin. This process is more complex than deleting an app from an individual device, because the subject is entire information systems — servers, cloud services, internal platforms, and the integrations between them.

The second requirement looks to the future: civilian agencies are banned from purchasing DeepSeek products or third-party services developed on DeepSeek. This is not an ordinary use restriction, but a complete ban at the level of government procurement. In practice, this means agencies must abandon any DeepSeek-related components both when concluding new contracts and when renewing existing ones. Together, the two requirements aim to fully end DeepSeek's presence in federal civilian IT infrastructure: existing traces are erased, and new traces are blocked in advance.

The order's official name is Exclusion and Removal Order #2026-01. According to documents filed in the Federal Register (docket DHS-2026-0628, document 2026-21447), the order was signed on July 24, 2026 by DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin. Its legal basis is the Federal Acquisition Supply Chain Security Act of 2018. This law gives the government authority to exclude technologies threatening the supply chain from federal procurement and information systems, and exclusion and removal orders are issued under that authority.

Notably, although the order was signed in July, the public notice about it was published on October 19 — almost three months later. Official documents do not explain the reason for this gap. With the publication of the notice, the order drew broad public attention, and the process of its execution by federal agencies officially began. The Federal Register entry (docket DHS-2026-0628) confirms the order's status as an official document whose text the general public can review.

The risks DHS is citing

The department justifies its decision with the threats DeepSeek models pose to security. The official statement says DeepSeek models contain multiple threat vectors, and their use could lead to the transfer of sensitive data to the People's Republic of China:

DeepSeek models contain multiple threat vectors, and their use could lead to the transfer of sensitive data to the People's Republic of China. — Statement by the US Department of Homeland Security

The phrase "multiple threat vectors" indicates the department sees the risk not at a single point but in several directions. The main risk named in the statement is the possible transfer of sensitive data to China. This means the concern is not a theoretical vulnerability, but the risk of real data circulating in government systems leaking into a foreign jurisdiction.

According to Anadolu Agency, the directive specifically notes that DeepSeek servers are located in China, where national legislation gives the government's cyber and intelligence bodies extensive access to company infrastructure. That is, the risk is seen not only in the model itself but also in the jurisdiction of the infrastructure it runs on: if the law of the country where the servers are located gives state bodies the right to access company systems, any data processed there is potentially at risk.

Along with the order, agencies are required to take interim cybersecurity measures. These include enhanced network logging — detailed recording of all network activity in the systems — and tighter control of outbound data — restricting and inspecting data flows leaving the network. These measures serve as an additional layer of protection for the period until DeepSeek products are fully removed: logging helps detect suspicious activity, and outbound-flow control prevents data exfiltration.

The chain of earlier restrictions

The current order did not appear out of nowhere — it continued a chain of restrictions that had been tightening for months. Before it, the US Department of Commerce and the Navy had already banned DeepSeek from government devices. Those measures were aimed mainly at individual devices — phones, tablets, and work computers — and their goal was to stop employees from using the model on personal or work devices.

Some states also acted on their own initiative: New York, Tennessee, and Virginia introduced their own restrictions on DeepSeek. This shows the concern existed not only at the federal level but also at the state level, and local authorities took their own measures without waiting for a federal decision.

The new federal order is broader than all of these measures: it is not limited to individual devices but covers the entire IT infrastructure of federal civilian agencies and the government procurement process. Thus restrictions tightened in three stages — first individual devices, then state-level restrictions, and now a full ban covering federal systems and procurement. Each new stage expanded the reach of the previous one and further narrowed DeepSeek's place in government infrastructure.

Scope: civilian agencies only

The order's scope is precisely limited: it applies only to federal civilian executive-branch agencies. The Department of Defense (the Pentagon) is not covered by this order — the military structure is managed under a separate procedure. This boundary is clearly stated in official documents, and no information is given about expanding it.

This detail matters because it shows the order's targeted direction: this is not about the entire federal government, but about the information systems of civilian agencies. It is in these systems that daily public services run — citizen data, inter-agency document flows, internal communications — and the department considers protecting this layer a priority. The exclusion of the Department of Defense from coverage is specifically noted in the order's text — showing the boundary was set deliberately and precisely. Given the number of civilian agencies and the scale of their systems, the order's effective reach is still very broad: the information infrastructure of dozens of agencies must undergo full review.

Background: rising tensions

Tensions around DeepSeek are rising against the backdrop of global competition in artificial intelligence. The Chinese company's models spread widely in a short time and began to be used in government offices and private organizations. It was this wide spread that drew the attention of security services: the wider the model is used, the more urgent the risk of data leaking through the surrounding infrastructure appears.

The US government now views AI models not as ordinary software, but as components to be assessed from the perspective of supply chain security. The fact that Order #2026-01 rests on the 2018 law also testifies to this: AI models are being formally brought within the mechanisms that ensure the security of government procurement and information systems. This approach creates the legal ground for similar orders against other models in the future.

Although this decision directly concerns only US federal civilian agencies, the supply chain security question is gaining global importance for any organization using third-party AI services. We have also covered DeepSeek's activity in the Aishunos archive — for example, you can read in detail about the $12 billion investment in the company. The new order thus radically changes the legal landscape around DeepSeek: the model can no longer remain in federal civilian systems either as an existing service or as a future procurement object.