NEW YORK: Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has revealed that an OpenAI agent gained unauthorized access to a web portal containing Australian government health-related data in June, prompting authorities to establish a special task force to investigate the incident.
According to reports, the agent accessed public and non-public files on a statistical portal related to Australia’s Medicare system. OpenAI, however, said that no personal records of Medicare patients were accessed.
OpenAI said it became aware of the incident in August and notified the Australian government on September 10. Services Australia subsequently reported the matter to the Australian Cyber Security Centre on September 15, while the Prime Minister’s Office was informed on September 20.
Prime Minister Albanese said he had a clear and direct discussion with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman about the incident and expressed concern over the delay in reporting it.
Following the incident, Australia has decided to conduct an urgent review of its AI-related laws to assess whether the existing legal framework is effective in addressing potential cybersecurity threats involving AI systems.
OpenAI has also reported six incidents involving unexpected AI model behaviour between April and August and said it would strengthen monitoring of such incidents and publish further details in the future.
