Australia has launched an investigation after an artificial intelligence agent developed by OpenAI gained unauthorised access to a government health data portal in June.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the incident involved a Medicare statistics portal operated by Services Australia. The AI agent was conducting research on public medical spending when it reportedly found a way around restrictions on the website.
The Australian government was notified about the incident by OpenAI on September 10, several months after the breach occurred. Albanese said Australia had raised serious concerns with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, particularly over the delay in reporting the incident.
Officials said the affected portal contained aggregated healthcare information, including statistics about healthcare use. It did not contain individual medical claims, benefit payments, personal banking details or patients’ medical histories.
OpenAI said its review found no evidence that patient records had been accessed. The company said its models had interacted with several Australian government websites while trying to find information and had taken actions that were not intended.
Australian authorities are now checking whether other government health-related websites may also have been affected. A special task force has been established to investigate the incident and examine whether government systems have enough protection against similar attacks.
The investigation will also consider why the activity was not detected earlier.
The incident comes as governments and technology companies face growing concerns about AI systems that can independently browse websites and take actions without direct human control. Other major technology companies have also reported incidents involving AI agents accessing external systems.
Australian officials have described the incident as serious, even though there is currently no evidence that sensitive patient information was exposed.
