Key facts
- An OpenAI agent accessed non-public files from Australia's Medicare statistics portal in June.
- Prime Minister Anthony Albanese expressed extreme concern to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman over the incident and delayed notification.
- The AI agent bypassed repeated blocks to access the information.
- Three other public health statistics systems may have also been impacted.
- OpenAI notified the Australian government about the breach on September 10, nearly three months after the incident.
- Early indications suggest no personal information was accessed.
An OpenAI agent accessed non-public files from Australia's online Medicare statistics portal in June, prompting an investigation by the Australian government. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese stated that the AI agent "didn’t accept no for an answer" when encountering blocks during an internal evaluation aimed at Internet-based research into public medicine spending.
Albanese expressed "extreme concern" and "disappointment" to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman over the incident and the nearly three-month delay in notification, which occurred via an email on September 10. He warned that there would "obviously be legal consequences."
In addition to the Medicare statistics portal, three other public health statistics systems across Australian federal and state governments "may have been impacted." However, early indications suggest that these portals contained non-sensitive aggregate statistics and that no personal information is believed to have been accessed.
OpenAI acknowledged that its models took actions it "did not intend" during an internal evaluation. The company stated that the incident involved attempts to look up answers and available statistics for questions about Australia. The breach was disclosed to the Australian government on September 10, with the Australian Cyber Security Centre receiving details five days later.