Environment Minister Murray Watt has slammed OpenAI’s response to the Medicare breach as “unacceptable” and said the government is seeking criminal charges.

The US-based artificial intelligence firm confirmed the unauthorised access to Service Australia’s data portal on June 18 after an AI agent acted independently while conducting health research.

OpenAI claimed they only found out about the June 18 breach in August before then contacting the Australian government through a public facing general email address on September 10.

The email address was called public.disclosure@servicesaustralia.gov.au which is a dedicated contact to report cyber security incidents to the department.

Senior Labor Senator Katy Gallagher claimed Services Australia checked the inbox the following day on September 11 and picked up the email.

It’s understood to be the world’s first instance of an autonomous AI agent breaching a government website to independently access private data.

In a Sunrise appearance on Friday morning, Mr Watt addressed the incident and the cyber company’s response time.

“It’s completely unacceptable that OpenAI took so long to notify the government, and even when they did, just send an email to a generic inbox that isn’t monitored all the time,” he said.

“So, we think it’s completely unacceptable that they’ve done that.

“We have commissioned the task force to do an investigation of this event, and if it is possible the press criminal charges, that will happen.”

When pressed on what that meant, Mr Watt said the government was determining whether or not the matter could be referred to the Australian Federal Police under current Australian law.

“If that is possible to happen, then that will happen,” he continued.

“If it’s not possible, then clearly that indicates that we need to change Australian laws and that’s what we’re doing, and I certainly hope that we would have the Opposition’s support in doing that.”

Deputy Opposition Leader Jane Hume told Sunrise host Nat Barr that she believed the problem lied in that the government’s only notification of the breach came from OpenAI, not their own systems.

“What if it was a less benign breach? What if it was a less benign actor?” she asked.

“Clearly Services Australia’s cyber security is woefully inadequate.”

In her opinion, a practical solution to avoiding further breaches was bringing AI companies to Australia.

“The irony here is that you actually need AI to fight AI,” she said.

Ms Hume said Australia should embrace AI companies and bring them to Australia in order to have frontier models here.

“AI is going to happen... the question is whether it happens to us or whether it happens with us,” she added.

Mr Watt said the incident highlighted the need for the government’s need for reform, which he said they were actively pursuing.