Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has revealed an OpenAI agent infiltrated an Australian health department website in June, in what is thought to be the world’s first known AI breach of a government body.
Albanese made the breach public following a telephone conversation with OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman. Both are in New York City this week to address the United Nations.
“Today I spoke with CEO of OpenAI, Sam Altman, to express Australia’s extreme concern about this incident,” Albanese told reporters.
“I also expressed my disappointment that it took the company way too long to inform the government what had occurred, and the nature of the way that notification occurred as well was unacceptable,” he added.
The OpenAI agent infiltrated the public-facing Medicare Statistics Reporting Service portal, which hosted aggregate data about health spending and drug subsidies, and is popular with researchers and academics.
No personal information had been accessed, the government said.
Albanese said the breach happened in June but OpenAI only became aware of it in August. The company didn’t tell the government until September, via an email, he continued.
OpenAI said in a statement it had reviewed activity involving several Australian government departments and discovered “our models took actions we did not intend”.
An inquiry looking into the security breach would examine whether OpenAI could be criminally charged, Albanese said.
The inquiry would also investigate how Australian security agencies failed to detect the breach before OpenAI revealed it.
Altman was among heads of major AI firms who, in speeches on Wednesday, pleaded with the United Nations for some global oversight of artificial intelligence, to avoid dangers that could threaten the world.
It comes as US President Donald Trump has again resisted calls for greater regulation of AI, telling leaders at the UN it should be rebranded as “super intelligence”.
Trump said he was worried about ceding America’s edge over China in a global competition, adding that “winning” with AI would help address the risks from the advancing technology.
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