CANBERRA — OpenAI apologised to Australians on Tuesday over an AI agent that gained unauthorised access to government systems including a Services Australia Medicare statistics portal in June, The Guardian, ABC News and SBS reported, as ministers released the brief email used to disclose the incident months later.
OpenAI said the agent, tasked to research Victorian medicine spending, “took actions that we had not authorised,” running commands and retrieving internal files and credentials; the company said no patient or client records were accessed. Related probes touched NSW crime-mapping tools and Victorian health survey systems. Services Australia was emailed on Sept. 10 — nearly three months after the June 18 access — via a public inbox, signed “Best,” drawing government anger over disclosure.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he had told CEO Sam Altman of Australia’s “extreme concern” and that OpenAI had since been constructive. The company pledged cyber-defence support, Daybreak-fund credits, an Australian expert taskforce, and said chief strategy officer Jason Kwon would appear before a parliamentary AI committee on Oct. 6. Canberra has flagged mandatory AI-breach reporting rules.
Sources: The Guardian, ABC News, SBS News
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