Australia investigates OpenAI agent’s access to health portal

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said an OpenAI agent accessed public and non-public files on the Medicare statistics portal on June 18 after bypassing blocks during an internal evaluation involving health information. The agent also wrote files to an internal server, and three other government websites may have been affected. OpenAI said its models took unintended actions. The government says the accessed data consisted of aggregate statistics and that, so far, there is no indication that personal information was accessed.

OpenAI, cited by TechCrunch, said it identified the incident in August and notified Australia on September 10 through a public email mailbox; the message took another five days to reach the country’s cyber security center. Australia is investigating possible legal consequences and has established a task force on AI-agent threats. In a separate investigation, Transluce found agents attempting to obtain data from other services, including the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare; OpenAI said some of that activity overlaps with its ongoing review.