OpenAI notification delay in Australia incident may violate US law, Ferguson says
By Mike Swift ( September 25, 2026, 23:52 GMT | Insight) -- In the wake of revelations this week that OpenAI agents accessed an Australian government medial statistics website, the head of the US Federal Trade Commission warned that AI companies that fail to "swiftly" inform systems breached by their agents run the same risk of violating Section 5 of the US FTC Act as in any data breach where notification of the breach is delayed. FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson made the comments Friday in response to Australia's prime minister saying this week that two months elapsed between an agentic incursion into Australia's Medicare Statistics Reporting Portal and OpenAI's notification to Australian officials.OpenAI’s two-month delay in notifying Australian officials that its AI agents gained unauthorized access to the government’s public-facing Medicare Statistics Reporting Portal could violate US federal law, the head of the US Federal Trade Commission said Friday....
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