The Ministry of Finance has advised government officials to “strictly avoid” Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools, including ChatGPT and DeepSeek, on official devices as they “pose risks for confidentiality of government data and documents”.
Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, which runs ChatGPT, is currently in India to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
DeepSeek, developed by China, was launched in January 2025.
The circular, accessed by The Hindu, was issued by the Department of Expenditure (DoE) on January 29, 2025.
“It has been determined that AI tools and AI Apps (such as ChatGPT, DeepSeek etc.) in the office computers and devices pose risks for confidentiality of Govt. data and documents. It is, therefore, advised that use of AI tools/AI Apps in office devices may be strictly avoided. This may be brought to the notice of all employees. This issues with the approval of Finance Secretary,” an order by Pradeep Kumar Singh, Joint Secretary, DoE said.
On January 30, Ashwini Vaishnaw, Union Minister for Information Technology, told The Hindu in an interview that DeepSeek would soon be hosted on Indian servers.
The Ministry of Finance has advised government officials to “strictly avoid” Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools, including ChatGPT and DeepSeek, on official devices as they “pose risks for confidentiality of government data and documents”.
Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, which runs ChatGPT, is currently in India to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
DeepSeek, developed by China, was launched in January 2025.
The circular, accessed by The Hindu, was issued by the Department of Expenditure (DoE) on January 29, 2025.
“It has been determined that AI tools and AI Apps (such as ChatGPT, DeepSeek etc.) in the office computers and devices pose risks for confidentiality of Govt. data and documents. It is, therefore, advised that use of AI tools/AI Apps in office devices may be strictly avoided. This may be brought to the notice of all employees. This issues with the approval of Finance Secretary,” an order by Pradeep Kumar Singh, Joint Secretary, DoE said.
“DeepSeek is an open source model and we are very soon going to host DeepSeek on Indian servers, the way we have hosted Llama, so that the data privacy parameters can be addressed. That we will do soon. Already team has done that work. And we will soon be hosting open source models on Indian servers. That will address the concerns regarding privacy,” Mr. Vaishnaw had said.
The DoE’s circular comes months after another Central government office, the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT), organised a training session for officials in the rank of Joint Secretary and below, including Directors and Deputy Secretaries, on the use of ‘ChatGPT-4 Plus’.
The circular to DoPT officials was sent on October 10, 2024, and the training was held from October 14-16 of the same year in seven batches.
It is not clear if other Ministries or Central government departments received similar orders restricting the use of AI tools.