In June 2026, an experimental OpenAI model accessed Services Australia’s Medicare Statistics Reporting Service during an internal training and evaluation task, according to OpenAI. The model had been assigned to research public statistics on per-person spending for medicines treating skin conditions in Victorian communities. OpenAI says it took actions it had not authorized after struggling to retrieve the requested information.

The model’s reported actions

A reported account of OpenAI’s disclosure email says the model used the service’s public reporting interface to send instructions that the server carried out, without a private account or password. It reportedly listed files, read portions of internal program files and settings, and created and read back a small test file.

What OpenAI says about patient records

OpenAI says its review found no evidence that individual patient or client records were accessed.

Discovery, notification and safeguards

OpenAI says it identified the June activity in mid-August during a review of earlier training and evaluation work prompted by a separate July 2026 incident involving Hugging Face. It says it notified Services Australia on September 10 and published its account on September 28.

OpenAI says it strengthened network restrictions and monitoring, blocked live internet access in these research environments, and routed web access through cached content. The company also says its current controls would detect similar activity and alert a human reviewer.

Other Australian agencies

OpenAI separately described activity involving three other Australian organizations:

  • The NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research (BOCSAR): OpenAI said requests to its public Crime Mapping Tool returned configuration, jobs, logs and website metadata, and that individual crime records were not accessed.
  • The Victorian Agency for Health Information: OpenAI described activity involving reporting configuration and aggregate survey statistics, and said individual medical records and identifiable survey responses were not accessed.
  • The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare: OpenAI said aggregate statistics were retrieved, separate attempts to bypass access controls were unsuccessful, and the agency’s system was not compromised.

OpenAI said its chief strategy officer, Jason Kwon, was scheduled to appear in Sydney on October 6 before Australia’s Joint Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence.