Australia launches urgent review after OpenAI program hacks government health portal - BBC News BBC Homepage Skip to content Accessibility Help Your account Home News Sport Business Technology Health Culture Arts Travel Earth Audio Video Live More menu More menu Search BBC Home News Sport Business Technology Health Culture Arts Travel Earth Audio Video Live Close menu BBC News Menu Home Climate World US & Canada UK Business Tech Science Entertainment & Arts Health More In Pictures BBC Verify Newsbeat World Africa Asia Australia Europe Latin America Middle East Australia launches urgent review after OpenAI program hacks government health portal 24 September 2026 Summary This live coverage has closed - read our main story here Australia launches a review after an OpenAI agent "infiltrated" part of the government's healthcare scheme Medicare - here's what we know The agent - an autonomous computer program - accessed a statistics portal in June, PM Anthony Albanese says while at the UN General Assembly (Unga) OpenAI became aware in August and told the Australian government in September, via an email to a general government inbox , which an Australian minister says is checked once a day In response, OpenAI says "our models took actions we did not intend" - and it found no record of patient data being accessed Sam Altman, the company's boss, earlier this week called for international standards for the industry Experts tell the BBC it's the world's first known breach of a government system by rogue AI agents Agents, tokens, machine learning - some key AI terms to know Previous Next 1:02 What you need to know about the OpenAI Australian government hack. 00:01:02, play video What you need to know about the OpenAI Australian government hack 1:11 'It is utterly unacceptable' - Australian deputy PM. 00:01:11, play video 'It is utterly unacceptable' - Australian deputy PM 0:31 OpenAI agent hacked government website, Australian PM says. 00:00:31, play video OpenAI agent hacked government website, Australian PM says 1:01 BBC explains the OpenAI agent Medicare hack. 00:01:01, play video BBC explains the OpenAI agent Medicare hack 0:24 OpenAI 'took way too long' to inform the Australian government. 00:00:24, play video OpenAI 'took way too long' to inform the Australian government Live Reporting Edited by Sam Hancock and Owen Amos, with reporting from Katy Watson in Sydney Australian health portal hacked by autonomous AI agent with urgent review commissioned published at 11:34 BST 11:34 BST Cachella Smith Live reporter Image source, EPA As discussions took place at the UN General Assembly in New York about the opportunities AI provides - and how best to manage it - Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese revealed that the country's universal health insurance scheme had been hacked by an OpenAI agent. In fact, the hack happened in June , the company became aware of it in August, and then sent an email to a government agency's general inbox in September . "It took the company way too long to inform the government," Albanese said, adding that the method of notifying officials was also "unacceptable". Believed to be the first known breach of a government system by rogue AI agents, the hack accessed Medicare's statistics portal which contains private, but not sensitive, data. Our cyber correspondent, Joe Tidy, writes that experts believe the systems were poorly protected - but more important is that this is not the first instance of AI agents ignoring laws on accessing online information. Tech reporter Tom Gerken explains AI itself has no true understanding of what it is being asked - while tech editor Zoe Kleinman asks if AI is in its "move fast and break things" era. The Australian government has launched an review of AI laws and governance - but this is a global issue. AI might have dominated discussions at Unga this week, but a consensus among world leaders on how best to harness opportunities while tackling the risks still feels a way off. Our live coverage is closing now - read our main story here . Thanks for joining us. Share close panel Share page Copy link About sharing Can AI be taught not to misbehave? published at 11:25 BST 11:25 BST Chris Vallance Senior technology reporter The job of keeping AI agents on the rails is called "alignment" in the industry – keeping it in line with what humans want. It has proven to be challenging. Large language models are, to simplify a lot, just predicting the likeliest output to a given input - they don't consider the consequences of that output in the way a human would. Companies do try and steer how AIs respond through training, sometimes involving human feedback, and separate AI systems can also be used to monitor output and block certain types of harmful response. Models are also given "guardrails" - instructions setting out how they should respond. And AI firms employ specialists in "red teaming" who work to spot ways users could get models to disregard these "guardrails". But guardrails are now being challenged by the models themselves. In a list of concerning behaviour published by OpenAI , external last week it revealed an unreleased AI system had tried to jailbreak its own instructions. Share close panel Share page Copy link About sharing Are we back in big tech's 'move fast and break things' era? published at 11:05 BST 11:05 BST Zoe Kleinman Technology and AI editor That defined the bad old days of social media running riot in its user data feeding frenzy. Now we have AI, an incredibly powerful technology, and an intense global race to be the first to build the world's most advanced models - egged on in no small part by US President Donald Trump. For all the AI companies are saying about safety and "alignment" (aka the tech adhering to human values), examples of AI behaving unpredictably are now coming thick and fast. Tech bosses are now pleading