Australia investigates how an OpenAI agent accessed a government website

Australian officials say an OpenAI agent accessed a Medicare statistics portal without authorization in June. On September 24, Australian time, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced a forensic investigation and an urgent taskforce.

The portal held aggregate statistics. It was separate from the systems that process Medicare claims and payments. Officials say the agent accessed both public and non-public files.

Officials currently believe the agent did not access personal information. They have found no evidence that it compromised the wider Services Australia network.

Those findings remain preliminary while the investigation continues. Nothing reported so far shows that anyone's Medicare records were exposed.

Government Services Minister Katy Gallagher says OpenAI notified Services Australia on September 10. The agency notified the Australian Signals Directorate on September 15.

ABC reports that OpenAI discovered the activity in August. Investigators still need to explain the gaps between the incident, OpenAI's discovery and the government notifications.

Investigators still need to identify every file the agent accessed and check whether it reached other systems. Gallagher says the old portal is no longer active. Its public data is moving to data.gov.au.

The taskforce will review how the government handles AI cyber incidents. Urgent reports need to name the person responsible for receiving them and confirm that the notice arrived.