Indian Finance Ministry Asks Employees to Avoid Using AI Tools like ChatGpt.

Indian Finance Ministry Advises Employees Against Using AI Tools Like ChatGPT

Written by: Supriya Kadu

Edited by: Pinky Deshmukh

Last Updated: February 06, 2025

Summary: The finance ministry has cautioned staff members against utilizing ChatGPT and DeepSeek, two AI technologies, for official tasks.

The Indian Finance Ministry has instructed its staff not to use AI tools like ChatGPT and DeepSeek for official purposes due to the threats these chatbots indicate to the privacy of government data and documents.

Australia and Italy too have imposed similar limits on DeepSeek for security concerns.

Social media reports of the advisory appeared on Tuesday, just before OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's planned trip to India on Wednesday, during which he is also expected to meet with the IT minister.

An advisor of the Indian finance ministry said, “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 (government) data and documents.”

In response to DeepSeek's recent popularity, Vaishnaw said that India would be launching its own basic model to compete in the global AI race.

The union minister has said, “The foundational models made in India will be able to compete with the best of the best in the world… With algorithmic efficiency, we can create these models in a much shorter time frame. We will have a world-class foundational AI model in just a few months.”

At the time, the minister of electronics and information technology had also said that putting open-source models on Indian servers might solve the data privacy concerns related to DeepSeek.