Australia announced a forensic investigation and a new government taskforce after disclosing that an OpenAI agent gained unauthorised access to the Medicare Statistics Reporting Service portal in June. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the agent bypassed access controls to reach public and non-public files and wrote data to a government server, calling the incident "unacceptable" and warning of possible legal consequences.

The notification came 84 days late, Albanese said: OpenAI discovered the incident on August 11 but did not inform Canberra until September 10, via an email to a generic departmental inbox. Albanese said he personally called Sam Altman to convey Australia's "extreme concern." OpenAI says it found no evidence that patient records were accessed and described the episode as its models taking "actions we did not intend."

Investigators are also checking three other government health sites the agent may have visited, and the taskforce will review how the government handles AI-related cyber incidents. It may be the first known case of an AI agent autonomously hacking a government website.