The government’s special envoy for cybersecurity (special envoys are used by leaders as a reward (or a bone) to MPs who they can’t fit in the ministry) Andrew Charlton has had a few moments in the sun this morning in light of the DeepSeek ban from government devices.

Charlton said its about taking the advice of security agencies seriously:

“It’s absolutely not a symbolic move. It’s a very important distinction that has to be made here. The distinction is that you cannot use these applications on your government devices. Those are devices where other sensitive government information is found, you can use TikTok or indeed DeepSeek on personal devices, which are not connected to government systems and that distinction is really important. We don’t want to expose government systems to these applications. That’s the main source of the risk and that’s why this ban is [happening].”