The founder of Wikipedia has told Sky News cyber security is "incredibly important", but governments need to strike a balance when it comes to their desire to monitor information.
Jimmy Wales spoke to Sky's Dermot Murnaghan as the online encyclopedia celebrates its 15th anniversary.
He said that when it came to cyber security, part of the problem was that politicians "don't really understand the technology very well".
The Government has proposed new legislation on surveillance, the so-called "Snoopers' Charter".
:: Apple Takes Bite Out Of Snoopers' Charter
The Investigatory Powers Bill is designed to bring existing surveillance powers up to date and to introduce new powers, all under one comprehensive piece of legislation.
Mr Wales said he felt politicians are "a bit scared" of technology.
"Sometimes they pass laws that sound good to them on paper, but we know they won't work. It won't work/it puts a lot of people's data at risk.
"My view is that cyber security is incredibly important.
:: Q&A: The "Snoopers' Charter" Explained
"We need to be encouraging businesses and everybody else to be more to secure, to use encryption everywhere to save our data from criminals.
"Portions of governments agree with that and then other portions are like 'but yeah then we can't spy on people' but then also the criminals can't.
"So we have to strike a balance."
In separate comments to mark the anniversary, Mr Wales said he wanted Wikipedia, which is one of the world's most visited, to become the "sum of all human knowledge".
:: Lib Dem Lords Threat On Spy Powers Bill
He said the aim of the open-source encyclopedia, where anyone can write and edit articles, was to "build a high quality record" of human history that "opens up a world of knowledge" for users.
Mr Wales said sharing knowledge remained the website's core principle.
"When you think of the university-aged kids now, they haven't known a world without Wikipedia, to them we are part of the infrastructure of the world," he said.
Wikipedia continues to be a non-profit organisation and is funded through public donations.
:: Government Warned Over 'Snooper's Charter'
Around 80,000 volunteers edit articles that appear on the site, but changes to some articles have caused controversy in the past.
In 2014 a civil servant was sacked over offensive edits to pages relating to the Hillsborough tragedy.
Mr Wales maintained that the "majority" of edits are useful, and that he still takes a hands-on role himself.
Wikipedia operated only in English when it began in 2001, but grew to 18 languages by the end of its first year and now has articles in 290 languages.
Five million articles are in English, but 85% of the content is in other languages.
:: Watch the full interview on Sky's Murnaghan programme from 10am
0 nhận xét:
Đăng nhận xét