OpenAI Agent Breaches Medicare Portal in Australia; Albanese Demands Investigation

An artificial intelligence agent developed by OpenAI gained unauthorized access to an Australian government portal containing Medicare statistics, prompting a special investigation into cybersecurity and the use of advanced artificial intelligence systems.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the incident occurred on June 18, when an OpenAI agent, during a search on public spending for medicines, managed to bypass several restrictions of the Medicare Statistics portal, administered by “Services Australia.”

According to Australian authorities, the agent accessed both public files and material not publicly available. So far there is no evidence that patients’ personal data was accessed. OpenAI has said the information obtained included aggregate health statistics and internal file names.

Albanese said OpenAI had identified the incident during August, but the Australian government was notified only on September 10, via an email to a public address of “Services Australia.”

The Australian prime minister said he had contacted OpenAI CEO Sam Altman directly to express the government’s concern over the incident and the delay in notifying the authorities.

The government has set up a working group to investigate the incident, with the participation of cybersecurity experts and the institutions responsible for artificial intelligence. The investigation will also examine whether the agent touched other government systems.

According to an investigation by Australian public broadcaster ABC, among the systems under review are platforms of other health and statistical institutions.

OpenAI has said it is conducting a broad review of the model’s activity and that, during an internal evaluation process, its models undertook actions not anticipated by the company. OpenAI says there is no evidence that patients’ personal data was accessed.