Breaking: Public and non-public data accessed in OpenAI Medicare breach, PM says

OpenAI hacked Medicare portal, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese saysPosted Thu 24 Sep 2026 at 6:31amThu 24 Sep 2026 at 6:31am, updated Thu 24 Sep 2026 at 7:01amThu 24 Sep 2026 at 7:01amThe prime minister announced the breach on Thursday morning, while attending the United Nations General Assembly. (Reuters: Hollie Adams)Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has revealed an AI agent hacked into an Australian Medicare data portal earlier this year.Speaking in New York, Mr Albanese said the Open AI agent gained unauthorised access to the Medicare statistics reporting service portal administered by Services Australia.The AI agent accessed both public and non-public files.The agent was conducting research into public medical spending when it found a way to break through privacy protections.Mr Albanese said it took three months for OpenAI to admit the breach, which he said was unacceptable."Today I spoke with the CEO of OpenAI, Sam Altman, to express Australia's extreme concern about this incident," he said. "And I also expressed my disappointment that it took the company way too long to inform the government what had occurred."The nature of the way that the notification occurred as well was unacceptable."He said there was no evidence any individual personal information had been accessed, but an investigation aided by the Australian Signals Directorate was now underway.Defence Minister Richard Marles, who is currently acting prime minister while Mr Albanese is in New York, said he had been advised "the impact to our systems is very minor"."That said, what we are seeing here is an unauthorised access that has occurred via an AI model," he said."That is completely unacceptable. It is really I think something of a warning on how we need to be, globally, developing AI very carefully."