Opposition accuses Labor of delaying announcement about OpenAI agent’s Medicare hack
The federal government has been accused of withholding information about a rogue OpenAI agent’s hack on the Medicare portal until Prime Minister Anthony Albanese could make the announcement on the world’s biggest stage.
Albanese told reporters about the June breach on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly Meeting in New York on Thursday, where he had been pushing Australia’s artificial intelligence and social media agenda.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese addresses the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly. AP
He was also in the company of almost 130 world leaders, as well as OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman who delivered an address earlier that same day.
The announcement was exactly a week after the federal government was notified that the OpenAI agent had breached the Medicare Statistics Reporting Service portal on June 18.
In his address to the UN on Friday, Albanese pointed to the hack as an example of the need for greater global guardrails around artificial intelligence.
“Recently, an artificial intelligence agent infiltrated an Australian government website. This is unacceptable,” he said.
“And it is why Australia has been leading the way in establishing Australian standards for AI. Standards to ensure that AI will work and deliver for people, not for other way around.”
The prime minister’s political opponents back home have raised questions over the timing of the announcement.
Opposition Leader Angus Taylor accused his federal counterpart of “swanning around New York” while holding off on providing the public important information.
“It seems to be terribly coincidental, doesn’t it?,” he told reporters.
“He’s swanning around New York at black tie dinner events, getting this Global Citizen of the Year award, and he wanted to say something, so he held off.
“This stuff matters, and it should be timely. The government should be talking about it as soon as it knows about it, and that wasn’t the case.”
Liberal Senator James Paterson similarly did not believe it was a coincidence that Albanese made the announcement during the UN meeting.
“I think it neatly dovetailed with the political agenda that the prime minister has in New York City,” he told the ABC.
“I think the prime minister is trying to send a message about how he’s standing up to big tech and standing up for Australia.”
Nationals Senator Bridget McKenzie and One Nation Leader Pauline Hanson have also questioned the timing of the announcement.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman addressed world leaders at the UN meeting. AP Photo/Patrick Semansky
Albanese’s team has defended the timing of its alert to the public over the breach.
Labor Senator Murray Watt said the government did not want to be “half-cocked and providing information that turns out to be incorrect”.
“We wanted to understand exactly what had happened, what information had been accessed, whether it was a malicious attack or not,” he said.
“And once we had that information available, that was the appropriate time for it to make it public.“
Assistant Technology and Digital Economy Minister Andrew Charlton said the government had worked to determine whether any personal data was impacted.
“It was important for us to be able to determine the type of information that was accessed, in particular to be able to inform Australians about whether or not any personal data had been breached,” he told the ABC.
“In this case, we have determined that it has not been breached and then the prime minister then spoke to the CEO of OpenAI and announced this to the Australian public.”
Timeline of the rogue OpenAI agent hack
June 18: OpenAI had been working on developing more sophisticated artificial intelligence models and one was tasked with researching health and medical statistics.
It then approached four Australian government websites – the Medicare Statistics Reporting Service portal, the Victorian Department of Health, the NSW Bureau of Crime and Statistics and the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.
August: OpenAI becomes aware that its model had looked through information available to the public for all but one of the sites – the Medicare Statistics Reporting Service portal.
In that instance, it hacked the Services Australia-administered portal to reach information that was not given to it.
September 10: OpenAI notified the Medicare Statistics Reporting Service portal via its public disclosure email.
September 15: After confirming the notification, Services Australia reported it to the Australian Signals Directorate.
September 17: Public Service Minister Katy Gallagher was notified.
September 19-20: The prime minister’s office was notified.
September 22: OpenAI have their first technical exchange and briefing of the incident and what is known so far.
September 23: Albanese notified NSW Premier Chris Minns and Victorian Premier Ben Carroll.
September 24: Albanese announced the breach on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly Meeting.
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