China’s Z.ai disables AI coding assistant features after security issue

Beijing-based AI startup Z.ai announced on Monday it had disabled certain features of its AI coding assistant following reports that the tool was uploading user code repositories to overseas cloud servers without consent. The Chinese company, also known as Zhipu, expressed regret in a social media post after developers criticized its ZCode assistant for transmitting code data from the open-source Git platform to Alibaba Cloud.

Z.ai directed inquiries to its public statements when asked for further details. The issue stemmed from the Codebase Indexing feature, which was enabled by default, according to Z.ai. The company patched the vulnerability and pledged to establish a process for reporting and responding to product security issues. Z.ai apologized again on Monday, stating that users' code data had been deleted and was not retained by the cloud platform.

The company also announced the release of an independent security assessment report and a zero-data retention feature for developers and tech enterprises using its coding assistant.