Citing privacy concerns, Ward 4 Couns. Stephan Kinach and Marchy Bruni will ask city council next week to consider banning a chatbot developed by Chinese artificial intelligence company DeepSeek from city-owned and city-issued devices.
Released just last month, the large language model app soared almost immediately to the top of Apple's App Store chart for free apps.
The artificial intelligence assistant is said to perform at least as well as OpenAI's ChatGPT and costs 95 per cent less to run.
The following is the full text of the Kinach/Bruni resolution to be presented to city council on Monday.
DeepSeek on city-owned and city-issued devices
Mover: Coun. S. Kinach
Seconder: Coun. M. Bruni
Whereas the city council of Sault Ste Marie is committed to ensuring the privacy, security, and integrity of all city-owned and city-issued devices used by city employees, elected officials, and other personnel; and
Whereas DeepSeek is a third-party software tool that has raised concerns regarding the potential for unauthorized access to names, emails, telephone numbers and dates of birth, along with text or audio inputs, prompts, uploaded files, feedback, and chat histories; and
Whereas Shared Services Canada (SSC) as a precautionary measure recommends that governments should consider blocking the application and website on their departmental network and devices;
Now therefore be it resolved that staff be requested to report back to city council with a plan to implement the blocking of the DeepSeek from all city devices and networks.
Monday's city council meeting will be live-streamed on SooToday starting at 5 p.m.