Wiki Boss: Encryption Ban Like Banning Maths

Governments are trying to introduce cyber-snooping measures that are bound to fail because they do not understand the technical limitations, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales has told Sky News.

He says some people in top positions have "no idea" what they are talking about.

The web entrepreneur spoke to Sky News' tech show, Swipe, at this year's IP EXPO Europe - a major information technology event.

Asked whether he thought governments were being naive when it came to encryption and security issues, he said: "In general, I see governments not understanding technology very well and so they assume there are policy options on the table that don't exist."

Referring to officials attempting to ban end-to-end encryption - a secret way of communicating in which eavesdroppers cannot access messages - he likened it to attempting to ban mathematics.

"The software is already out there, freely shared online... You can't ban it.

"Anybody who proposes that as a policy option, you immediately know, 'Oh actually, you don't know anything about technology - like, you have no idea what you're talking about'."

Asked what a government could do to monitor would-be terrorists, Mr Wales suggested "old-fashioned policework" remained the best option.

"The world hasn't changed as much as they would like us to think it has."

Mr Wales had earlier delivered a keynote speech at the event in east London, in which he criticised Prime Minister David Cameron for previously implying that there needed to be a crackdown on encrypted communication services like WhatsApp, Snapchat and Apple's iMessage system.

"It's too late, Dave. This is not going to happen. The genie is out of the bottle," Mr Wales told the audience.

:: You can watch Swipe on Sky News on Friday at 9.30pm, Saturday at 2.30pm and Sunday at 8.30pm.