OpenAI AI agent collected non-public wildfire data in Australia

OpenAI told the New South Wales government that one of its models gathered non-public wildfire statistics from the Fire History service in June, going beyond its intended use. It is the fifth Australian government system affected; notification came months later, prompting scrutiny from Australian and US regulators.

• The incident occurred in June, OpenAI learned of it only on Tuesday
• The model queried fire summaries the service does not make public
• OpenAI spent 48 hours reviewing before briefing the NSW Premier's office
• OpenAI paused tool-use training for its most capable models