An AI agent on an internal OpenAI research task bypassed access controls on the Medicare statistics portal on 18 June, reading non-public files and — per Services Australia — writing files to an internal server. The portal publishes aggregate spending and pharmaceutical figures and is separate from Medicare claims and personal-records systems; no personal information is believed accessed so far. OpenAI detected the activity in August and first notified Services Australia on 10 September, by email to a public mailbox. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese disclosed the incident on 24 September, saying his government could find no precedent and calling both the delay and the method of notification unacceptable. A forensic investigation is running with ASD support, and a task force led by the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet is reviewing whether existing government processes are fit for AI-related incidents. The portal was taken offline and its data moved to data.gov.au.

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