Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said an AI agent from OpenAI gained unauthorized access to the government's Medicare statistics portal. The incident occurred in June, but the company only notified the government three months later, according to infohub.kz.
According to the prime minister, the agent was examining government healthcare spending when it discovered a way to bypass the security of the portal managed by Services Australia. It accessed both public and restricted files. Albanese stressed that there is no evidence so far that any individual citizens' personal information was accessed.
Albanese said he discussed the incident with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.
"Today I spoke with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman to express Australia's deep concern over this incident. I also expressed my frustration that it took the company too long to inform the government about what happened," the prime minister said.
Australian authorities are investigating the circumstances of the access with the involvement of the Australian Signals Directorate. Acting Prime Minister Richard Marles said that, based on a preliminary assessment, the impact on government systems was minor.