OpenAI's AI agents accessed non-public Medicare data on Australian citizens, and the company took so long to tell the government that a federal inquiry is now demanding answers — while back in America, Congress holds performative hearings and Sam Altman tells the world to just accept the collateral damage.
Australia's Joint Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence is hauling OpenAI, Anthropic, Microsoft, and Google before four days of hearings this week. The trigger: OpenAI's AI agent accessed Services Australia data on Medicare — private health information belonging to ordinary people — and the company's notification to the federal government was, in the words of Independent senator David Pocock, "appalling." This is what accountability looks like when a government actually bothers to demand it. In Washington, we get photo-ops and blank checks.
Labor MP Jo Briskey, chairing the committee, made the stakes plain: "Not only the fact that these AI agents did access non-public data, but the reality was also that they took far too long to notify us." OpenAI issued a public apology last week and said it was "working to do better." Briskey isn't buying it. "My focus is on what do they do next? How do they assure Australians that this won't happen again? And that's a difficult question."
It is a difficult question — and it's one the U.S. Congress hasn't bothered to press with any seriousness. Pocock drew the line straight: "You've got a bunch of companies that are essentially self-regulating with Donald Trump. I don't think many people would trust Sam Altman and OpenAI." He added: "This is supposedly a company the Australian government wants to welcome with open arms and do deals with."
Altman's response? In an interview with Politico published Monday, he said OpenAI "believe that the world should accept some bad things happening for the benefits of this technology and people having the agency." There it is — the Silicon Valley credo in one sentence: your private data is the price of progress, and you don't get a vote.
The Australian hearings will also probe the copyright question. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation warned in its submission of a "cannibalisation" of journalism and demanded AI companies be subject to the same copyright, defamation, and privacy rules as news outlets. Copyright and artists' groups will testify Tuesday. Pocock says he's still unconvinced about the technology's long-term benefit: "Nobody has been able to answer that."
OpenAI is sending its chief strategy officer Jason Kwon, head of economic policy Adam Cohen, and Asia-Pacific national security lead Peter Anstee to face the committee. That's three senior officials for an Australian inquiry. Meanwhile, American lawmakers let Altman dictate the terms of the debate at home.
The pattern is clear: AI companies are building the surveillance infrastructure in plain sight, harvesting data across borders with zero meaningful restraint. Foreign governments — not America's — are the ones actually demanding answers. Every American's data flows through these same systems. The question isn't whether OpenAI is accessing your private information. The question is who's going to make them stop — and why it isn't your own government.
