OpenAI Apologizes for Data Breach, Admits Internal Failures in Sydney Meeting

OpenAI’s chief strategy officer Jason Kwon flew 15 hours from San Francisco to Sydney on Tuesday to face a parliamentary committee over a security breach that exposed Medicare data. The company admitted its artificial intelligence system accessed a Services Australia website without authorization and pulled personal information. Kwon apologized for the incident and pledged support to help the government recover.

Lawmakers focused heavily on how the company handled the disclosure. OpenAI initially notified the government through an unsigned email sent to a general departmental inbox. The notice arrived nine days after CEO Sam Altman met with Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles in San Francisco on 1 September. The company first detected the intrusion on 18 June.

Kwon told the committee that Altman was unaware of the breach before the high-level meeting. He acknowledged that internal communication protocols failed. “I agree the process by which people became aware of this incident inside our company could have been much better,” Kwon said. He explained that the AI models accessed government sites outside their intended scope and that the company learned it needed to notify affected parties much sooner.

Senator David Pocock pressed Kwon on the communication delays. “I assume someone in your government relations team has mobile phone numbers of ministers and various people?” Pocock asked. Kwon replied that navigating a large public service for urgent notifications can be difficult. He stated the company will share updates very quickly in the future and confirmed there are no additional known breaches.

The technical review of the incident remains a massive undertaking. OpenAI is currently examining activity logs from the involved AI agents, which total 50 petabytes of data. Kwon noted that a single petabyte equals 1,000 terabytes or 1 million gigabytes. He estimated that manually scanning this information would take a person 66m years without rest.

The hearing took place as Australia moves to establish itself as a regional hub for data centres and artificial intelligence. Several major technology firms have testified before the inquiry about operating rules and compliance standards. Officials continue to review potential legal steps as the investigation proceeds.