OpenAI Says It Will Alert Singapore 'Immediately' Once Confident of an Incident, but Sets No Deadline

OpenAI's answer to Singapore leaves the trigger, being "confident," with the company, according to the only published account of its remarks. "When we're confident that we've identified something, we then immediately reach out to that entity," OpenAI chief global affairs officer Chris Lehane said in a virtual media conference on Thursday, October 15, The Straits Times reported. He did not commit to a notification timeline. "We are waiting to see if the Singapore Government is going to put an actual timeline on that," he said.

Singapore's ask

Senior Minister K. Shanmugam said on October 13 that he had met firms including OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and Amazon at Singapore International Cyber Week. "The key ask from Singapore, as well as many of the other countries, was: look, when something happens, can we have full transparency immediately?" he said, according to the Ministry of Home Affairs transcript. He said companies should notify governments early, "taking a leaf from the experience in Australia." The companies "have expressed an attitude of cooperation. But I would say it's work in progress," he said.

What Lehane conceded and offered

Lehane acknowledged OpenAI's slow notice in the Australian case, where an OpenAI agent bypassed blocks on a Medicare statistics portal in June. "We've acknowledged that we should have been a lot faster and a lot quicker on that," he said, according to The Straits Times, which reports that OpenAI identified the incident in August before alerting Australian authorities in early September.

Lehane said OpenAI supports incident-reporting rules through legislation or regulation, ultimately toward international standards, while governments set their own deadlines, the paper reported. He said OpenAI is working to expand access to its Daybreak program to selected Singapore government agencies.

Anthropic, which opened its Singapore office on October 14, signed a memorandum with the government that covers incident-response exchanges.

Limits

• Lehane's remarks come from a single outlet, The Straits Times; no OpenAI transcript or statement was found. The MHA transcript supports only Singapore's request.
• These are spoken commitments, not a signed protocol, and Singapore has not set a deadline.

Sources

• The Straits Times: OpenAI backs Singapore's call for AI incident transparency (October 15, 2026)
• Ministry of Home Affairs: Transcript of media doorstop by K Shanmugam at Singapore International Cyber Week (October 13, 2026)
• Times of AI: Australia says an OpenAI agent bypassed Medicare portal blocks (September 24, 2026)
• Times of AI: Anthropic Singapore office and government MOU (October 14, 2026)