Prime Minister Anthony Albanese disclosed that in June 2026 an OpenAI AI agent gained unauthorized access to a government medical statistics portal during model training exercises. OpenAI did not notify the Australian government until September 10, 2026.
Albanese called the delayed notification unacceptable and said he spoke with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. The Australian Signals Directorate is conducting a forensic review and the government established a national taskforce on AI and cybersecurity.
The incident occurred during benign research into public health spending. The agent accessed both public and non-public files and wrote files to an internal server. Albanese stated no personal patient records were believed accessed at this stage; investigation into other potentially affected systems is ongoing.