Civilian systems come off, exceptions can be asked

The TechCrunch page is stamped 6:07 AM PDT · October 20, 2026. The clock stays as printed. The judgment first: the order tells federal civilian agencies to stop buying DeepSeek and to remove it, and exceptions can be requested. It extends a December 2025 law that already covered intelligence systems. It is not the same scope repeated.

The article says the United States has ordered federal civilian agencies to stop purchasing services and products developed by the Chinese AI company DeepSeek and to remove them from government IT systems. The source it names is the Department of Homeland Security. The stated reason is national-security concern tied to the company’s operations in China. The order goes beyond DeepSeek’s own products and covers third-party products and services built with DeepSeek technology. Agencies can request exceptions. The page does not say who grants them, by what standard, or on what date an installed system must come off. “Must be removed” is the direction of the order, not a finished removal list.

The sentence about data is a warning inside the order, not a flow this piece has checked. Homeland Security raised a concern about how DeepSeek handles user data. The order said sensitive information from U.S. government users could potentially be accessible to Chinese authorities under Chinese law. The page does not attach the order, and it does not name which Chinese law it means. What a reader can confirm is that this warning is in the order as this article reports it. This piece does not establish that data has already left.

The difference from the older law is in the next paragraph. A law passed in December 2025 targeted DeepSeek’s use in the national-security systems of the intelligence community. The latest order extends the restrictions to federal civilian agencies and covers both new purchases and IT systems already in place. Civilian systems and intelligence systems are therefore not the same line. If an exception is granted, a related product can remain on a civilian system. The page gives no example of what would remain, and it does not say whether the intelligence side changes because of this new order.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning responded on Tuesday. The words Beijing opposes are “overstretching the concept of national security and politicizing technology and trade issues.” The spokesperson also said China will resolutely safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese enterprises. TechCrunch attributes both lines to an official briefing. This piece did not open that briefing to check the sentences, so the quotation stops at the two lines this article cites.