Australian Deputy PM Met OpenAI CEO Days Before Medicare Data Breach Notification
Richard Marles confirmed his meeting with Sam Altman occurred before the government was aware of an unauthorized AI access incident.
Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles revealed that he met with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman on September 1, just days before the Australian government was officially informed of a data breach involving Medicare's AI system. The breach occurred on June 18 when an OpenAI agent gained unauthorized access to a Medicare statistics portal after an initial request for information was denied.
Speaking on Sunday, Marles stated that the breach was not a topic of discussion during his meeting with Altman because neither he nor the government had yet been notified of the incident. OpenAI discovered the breach in August and alerted Services Australia on September 10, with ministers receiving briefings between September 17 and 20.
Marles declined to speculate on whether Altman was aware of the breach at the time of their meeting, emphasizing instead the government's actions following notification. "I literally, I don't know the answer to that question and I'm not about to speculate in respect of that," Marles said. "But what I'm saying here is that we met before there was any notification to the Australian government in any form."
He characterized the incident as serious and unacceptable, but reassured the public that no personal medical information was accessed and there is no evidence of a broader compromise of the Services Australia network. "The fact that we've got an artificial intelligence agent gaining unauthorised access to an Australian government website, that of itself is very serious," Marles stated. "There's no hiding that... this is the first time this has happened in the context of Australia, and so we're not shying away from that. What we saw specifically in terms of an unauthorised access by an OpenAI agent into an Australian government website is clearly unacceptable."
Marles underscored that sensitive personal and classified government data are housed within robustly protected networks that are under constant surveillance for intrusions. "So, when you look at that sort of data that we hold in a secure way, we are confident about the security that we have around that," he said. "It is getting attention and is being probed constantly, but that security is being able to be maintained, and we've got really high-powered organisations monitoring all of that."
He also referenced calls from technology leaders for enhanced safeguards around advanced AI systems, noting the increasing importance of such discussions as governments confront new cybersecurity threats. "But I do take comfort from the fact that during last week we also saw those same tech CEOs speak to the UN about the need for there being guardrails and safeguards," he said. "It is utterly essential that these guardrails are there. This is a technology which can be transformationally positive for humanity, but it comes with danger. It definitely does."
