Report: Brit pol loses BlackBerry to spy

LONDON, July 20 (UPI) -- Concerns have been raised about the security of British secrets after a top political aide lost his BlackBerry device to a suspected Chinese spy, sources say.

The Sunday Times newspaper says one of Prime Minister Gordon Brown's most senior aides was the victim of a "honeytrap" scheme in which the man was lured to a hotel room by a woman he met in a disco in Shanghai, China, only to find the next morning that his BlackBerry device had been stolen.

Citing unnamed sources, the newspaper said the aide had been reprimanded for the incident, which allegedly happened during a two-day trip to China in January.

A BlackBerry is a combination cell phone and hand-held computer that can be used for e-mailing. Even if there were no official secrets on the device, it could be used by foreign agents to hack into government servers, the newspaper said.

The incident adds to a series of high-profile cases in which sensitive government information has been lost through errors, inattentiveness and oversight. It also highlights widespread concerns that attendees of the Beijing Olympic Games will be targeted by Chinese computer hackers, the Times said.