Labor considers law changes after OpenAI Medicare hack
Australian ministers have raised changing the law to punish OpenAI for its rogue AI agent's Medicare breach if current offences cannot cover it, AAP reports.
Australia’s Labor government is weighing changes to Australian law after an OpenAI AI agent hacked a Medicare website, with ministers warning the incident may fall outside existing offences.
Environment Minister Murray Watt said the task force examining the breach would consider whether the matter could be referred to the Australian Federal Police. “If it’s not possible, then clearly that indicates that we need to change Australian laws,” he told Seven’s Sunrise program on Friday, adding that the government would press criminal charges if it was legally possible.
Digital Economy Minister Andrew Charlton told ABC Radio on Friday the case posed a legal headache. “An AI agent is not a legal person, and in our law liability for this type of incident always sits with a person or a company,” he said. “The liability has to be traced back to the intent of a person or a company that created or directed the agent.”
The breach — described by AAP as the world’s first known breach of a government platform by a rogue AI agent — happened on June 18, when an experimental OpenAI agent bypassed blocks on the Medicare Statistics Reporting Service portal and accessed public and non-public information. OpenAI found the activity in August and notified Services Australia via a generic public service inbox on September 10.
The task force convened for the first time on Thursday and is expected to report in a matter of weeks. The government says no personal medical data was accessed.
Sources
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