CANBERRA, Sept. 24 (Xinhua) -- Australia's Deputy Prime Minister said on Thursday that a breach of the nation's universal healthcare system by an OpenAI agent was utterly unacceptable.
Richard Marles, who is serving as the acting PM while Anthony Albanese attends the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, told reporters that a government taskforce will investigate whether the breach was illegal.
Albanese disclosed the incident while speaking in New York on Wednesday night, revealing that an OpenAI agent had gained unauthorized access to a Medicare data portal in June and accessed both public and non-public files.
He said that Services Australia, the government agency that administers the portal, was not notified by OpenAI until earlier in September.
Marles said on Thursday that authorities have expressed concerns to OpenAI about the delay in reporting the incident, which he described as utterly unacceptable.
"The government is taking this very seriously. That said, it is important to reassure the Australian public that the impact of this incident is relatively minor," he said.
"We are talking about aggregated medical statistics. No individual's medical data was accessed here. The system itself has not been in any way compromised."
Marles said that a taskforce announced by Albanese will investigate if there was a breach of Australian law and whether current laws are fit-for-purpose amid emerging AI capabilities. ■
