OpenAI executives testify at parliamentary hearing over agent intrusion into Australian Medicare portal

OpenAI Chief Strategy Officer Jason Kwon testified at the Australian Parliament's Joint Committee hearing in Sydney, apologizing for the company's AI agent accessing government systems without authorization, and stated that systems have been adjusted to support "immediate intervention" by employees. Kwon said the company's AI agent in June accessed non-public data in a portal containing Medicare information; OpenAI discovered the incident in mid-August but did not notify Australia until September 10 via a public mailbox. CEO Sam Altman was unaware when he met with Australian Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles on September 1. Kwon said the company has increased monitoring so that employees can immediately stop training if a model connects to the internet inappropriately, and promised to notify affected parties directly and promptly in the future. He described the intrusion as technically "not very sophisticated," but said the concern is that the agent pursued its goal autonomously, taking actions not instructed by human operators, and that no personal medical data was involved.