Hume Casts Doubt on Legal Action Over Medicare Data Breach Flagged by OpenAI

Questions over a breach of Australia's Medicare data system took center stage on Saturday, after it emerged that authorities only became aware of the breach because OpenAI notified them.

Asked whether legal action should be considered over the incident, Hume said the question of liability remained unclear, telling reporters she was "not entirely sure who they're going to put in cuffs."

Cyber defences questioned

Hume said the episode had exposed serious gaps in the government's own protections, saying "the real alarm bell that was set off this week is the fact that the only reason we knew about this breach of the Medicare archive or data system is because OpenAI told us there was a breach." Hume added that had OpenAI not disclosed the breach, authorities may never have known about it at all, arguing this demonstrated that Australia's cyber defences, "particularly for Services Australia," were "woefully inadequate."

At the same time, Hume cautioned against threatening criminal action against United States counterparts, describing them as "trusted partners" relied upon to help bring frontier artificial intelligence model training to Australia. "I don't necessarily think that finger-wagging at our trusted partners, or trying to gazump Donald Trump, is the way to go about that," Hume said.

The comments come as scrutiny grows over how the Medicare breach occurred and why it was not detected internally, with the government facing questions over the adequacy of its cyber security measures for sensitive health and welfare data.