A 36-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of stealing dozens of laptops and computer devices from a government-funded agency tasked with boosting productivity in Hong Kong.
The Hong Kong Productivity Council revealed the case on Saturday but stressed that the items were protected by encryption technologies and that so far no data appeared to have leaked.
The council said several laptops, which were previously used internally and were about to be put out of service, had disappeared. It said it had reported the case to police after its own probe suspected criminal activity was involved.
The council said based on surveillance records, it suspected that outsourced personnel had taken away the laptops stored in a locked computer room without permission.
Dozens of laptops and computer hard drives, as well as memory and graphics cards, were suspected to have been stolen, it said, adding it had already contacted the former users of the laptops.
“As encryption technology has been activated on the laptops and hard drives involved for protection, no data leakage has been found at present,” it said.
Police said on Saturday that the council had alerted the force to case on Tuesday.
After an investigation, officers arrested a 36-year-old man on suspicion of theft. He has been released on bail pending further investigation, and must report to police in late September, according to the force.
Several major public bodies and private organisations have been hit by large-scale cyberattacks in recent years with hackers stealing personal information and demanding large sums of money, raising concerns over how authorities would step up protection of personal information.
The privacy watchdog launched an investigation after charity Oxfam Hong Kong suffered a breach last month that potentially compromised the personal data of more than 470,000 people.
