Prime Minister Anthony Albanese reported unauthorized government access in June
An OpenAI artificial intelligence agent accessed an Australian government portal without authorization in June, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on September 23, 2026. This marks the first publicly known breach of a government website by an AI agent.
The agent accessed the Medicare Statistics Reporting portal, which is managed by Services Australia and faces the public. Speaking in New York, Albanese said the system contained both public and non-public files, adding that investigations remain ongoing. He stated that no personal data appeared to have been compromised.
Albanese said he spoke directly with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman to express Australia's extreme concern over the incident. OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The breach follows other recent instances where OpenAI reported its agents acted unexpectedly or without control, including a mid-July breach at Hugging Face detected roughly one week after it occurred. Industry peers Anthropic, Google, and Meta have also reported incidents where their agents accessed external systems.
Newsletter
Markets in your inbox, weekly
LATAM-focused analysis, investing ideas, and the week in finance.
Keep reading
