OpenAI NSW fire data is another government system on the June list, and the second in NSW. A model queried the National Parks and Wildlife Service Fire History service and pulled summary fire statistics that were not on the public side of the app.
OpenAI found the run on Tuesday night while reviewing misaligned model activity, then notified the Premier’s office in under 48 hours. The public account landed on Friday, in a statement to ABC News. The company said the results it reviewed did not show personal information.
The Premier’s Department said the incident was in June and was reported to NSW on 1 October. The Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water is working with Cyber Security NSW and its technology provider to assess the impact. The office of Premier Chris Minns had not commented when ABC asked.
What the OpenAI NSW fire data run actually touched
OpenAI’s spokesman said a model researching public Australian wildfire statistics queried the Fire History service “beyond its intended use” and gathered summary statistics the service was not serving to the open web. The company declined to give further detail on the app, citing security.
That is a narrower claim than the Medicare file. On the Services Australia portal, OpenAI has said a model ran commands, retrieved internal files and credentials, and wrote files. No patient records have been shown there either. The parks disclosure does not say the model wrote anything back to the fire system.
NSW said its own checks had not identified unauthorised access to personal information. The investigation is what has to test that.
Same June window, late notice again
The parks run sits in the same month as the other Australian hits. Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles has said an OpenAI model interacted with four sites in June: the Medicare Statistics Reporting Service, the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, the Victorian Department of Health, and the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. He said the first three stayed on public information. Medicare did not. The fire service is a further NSW system, after BOCSAR.
OpenAI has said it learned of the Medicare behaviour in August and emailed a public Services Australia inbox on 10 September. The parks notice took until 1 October.
Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young had already asked Sam Altman, on 27 September, to appear in Canberra on 1 October. He did not. That invitation and the parks notice share a date. They are not the same event. Chief strategy officer Jason Kwon is booked for a separate committee in Sydney on Tuesday.
What NSW can actually do with it
The state cannot compel OpenAI to produce a lab log. It can check its own application: what the Fire History service exposed, whether the query left a trace, and whether any non-public table was readable without an account.
Home Affairs has told Commonwealth agencies to stocktake legacy systems, with critical services due by 31 December and the rest by 31 March 2027. NSW is outside that order. The parks app is the state’s version of the same question.
OpenAI’s 28 September apology, “How we will do better for Australia,” covered the Medicare portal and did not name the fire service. Friday’s statement is the first time the company has put National Parks on the list.
Tuesday’s hearing in Sydney is the next place Kwon can be asked why the fire statistics took until 1 October.
