Steve Vickers was interviewed by South China Morning Post:

“Steve Vickers, chief executive officer of a security consulting firm and the former head of the Hong Kong police's criminal intelligence bureau, said the consulate's silence made it difficult to assess the potential security risks.

"The bottom line is that the general public don't know whether this was 'work equipment' or a private and personal family computer kit of no real value. However, the loss of any official electronic data is always of concern," he said.

Personal computers were unlikely to hold sensitive data and official government computers would be encrypted to a very high level, far beyond the ability of a common criminal to crack, he said.

Vickers also said the home of a diplomat should have undergone strict security checks.

"A standard operating procedure would be to sweep the premises for unauthorised bugs [and so on]," Vickers said.

"Locks and windows should be secure and generally the private facility/estate security should be sound."