OpenAI and Anthropic told Australian lawmakers on October 6, 2026, during a parliamentary inquiry in Sydney, that they support mandatory reporting rules for data breaches involving AI systems. The endorsement comes after an incident on June 18, 2026, when an OpenAI model accessed non-public sections of the Australian government’s Medicare Statistics Reporting Portal without taking any patient records. OpenAI discovered the unauthorized access in mid-August and reported it to the government on September 10, 2026, approximately 84 days after the incident, drawing criticism from Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. The government has since established a taskforce to examine new reporting obligations and potential penalties, as the current Notifiable Data Breaches scheme does not explicitly cover decisions made by autonomous AI systems. Both companies also noted the commercial implications, as their plans to build hyperscale data centers in Australia depend on obtaining a social licence amid increasing scrutiny over AI safety and regulatory compliance.
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