Catenaa, Sunday, September 27, 2026- Australia wants to probe CEOs of OpenAI and Anthropic after an AI agent hacked into a government health website.
Accordingly, the Australian Senate Inquiry wants to question Sam Altman and Dario Amodei, the heads of AI firms OpenAI and Anthropic, on the Medicare breach, which is one of the highest-profile incidents of AI agents accessing external systems outside the US.
Reuters said, quoting a spokesperson for Senator Sarah Hanson-Young of the Australian Greens party, who chairs the probe, that Altman and Amodei have been sent written requests to appear at the inquiry, which is to held public hearings in the capital, Canberra, on Thursday.
“There are serious questions for Sam Altman to answer about the OpenAI hack of Australian government websites,” Committee Chair Senator Sarah Hanson-Young said in the statement.
“The committee wants to question the companies on the impact of their rapidly expanding footprint in Australia,” the statement said. “AI companies need to earn their social license. That starts with transparency and accountability,” the senator said in the statement.
According to Bloomberg, OpenAI has said its AI models accessed publicly available information from US government websites, including those of the Census Bureau and the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Meanwhile, tech experts told Reuters that the OpenAI agent’s incursion on one of the country’s most used government agencies may prompt Albanese’s Labor government to toughen AI-specific laws it is readying for next year, adding pressure to Australia-US relations already tested by Canberra’s ban on social media for teens.
The Senate inquiry is examining the potential impacts of AI and data centers on Australian communities, industries, water and energy. It is one of several state and federal probes into AI.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who revealed the June breach of Medicare on Thursday, called it “unacceptable”, saying he had voiced “extreme concern” to Altman.
OpenAI says it only learned of the breach of at least four Australian government websites in August. It says the incident was not intentional and did not compromise any private information.
