Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has revealed an AI agent hacked into an Australian Medicare data portal earlier this year.
Speaking in New York, Mr Albanese said the Open AI agent gained unauthorised access to the Medicare statistics reporting service portal administered by Services Australia.
The AI agent accessed both public and non-public files.
The agent was conducting research into public medical spending when it found a way to break through privacy protections.
Mr Albanese said it took three months for OpenAI to admit the breach, which he said was unacceptable.
“Today I spoke with the CEO of OpenAI, Sam Altman, to express Australia’s extreme concern about this incident,” he said.
"And I also expressed my disappointment that it took the company way too long to inform the government what had occurred.
“The nature of the way that the notification occurred as well was unacceptable.”
He said there was no evidence any individual personal information had been accessed, but an investigation aided by the Australian Signals Directorate was now underway.
Which is hacking.by most legal standards. They dont really care if the attempt to secure the data was good or bad; you dont get out of breaking and entering by saying the door wasn’t locked.
Accessing public information is not a crime in most legal definitions.
It’s a crime if you attempt to access things you’re not allowed to access. That doesn’t include publicly available information.
Right, and it wasn’t made publicly available. The attempt to hide it wasn’t great but it wasn’t posted in a public forum or intended for public viewing. Once again, “your locks were broken” is not a viable legal defense against breaking and entering. The article literally says “unauthorized access”, which suggests circumvention of (inadequate) security.