PM's high-profile adviser lambasts plans to block online porn, and says police need more resources to fight internet crime

This article is more than 7 years old

This article is more than 7 years old

Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales, one of David Cameron's most high-profile technology advisers, has rubbished plans to introduce porn filters through the UK's internet service providers, dismissing the proposals as "ridiculous" and saying money would be better spent on policing internet crime.

Wales, who advises the government on open access to information online, told Channel 4 News on Friday the planned software would fail.

"When Cameron uses the example of paedophiles who are addicted to internet porn – all that these plans would do is require them to opt in," he said. "It's an absolutely ridiculous idea that won't work."

The prime minister announced last week that by the end of 2014 every new contract with a UK internet service provider will ask customers to opt in to receive adult content.

He said ISPs "will have rewired their technology" to keep children safe but gave little detail, leading critics to say the proposal is unimplementable and pointing out that the filters would only be activated for wholly new contracts.

The agreement is with the UK's biggest ISPs, BT, Virgin, Sky and TalkTalk, who account for 90% of the UK's internet users.

Wales said that existing legislation around criminal activity online, including abuse and credit card fraud, is adequate, but that police need more resources.

Referring to the revelations around mass surveillance of citizens by the National Security Agency in the US through consumer internet firms, Wales said "billions had been wasted shopping on ordinary people's data in a fruitless search for terrorists".

"We should be devoting a significant proportion of that to dealing with the real criminal issues online, stealing credit card numbers, hacking into sites … that is going to take an investment in real, solid police work."

Wales also announced that Wikipedia is to introduce encryption to the site so that users are protected once they sign in, following a similar announcement by Facebook on Thursday.

"We trust our bank data to the same kind of encryption," he said. "There will always be questions about whether the NSA has secretly managed to decrypt everything but we think that's highly unlikely. It's non-trivial to do it well, so we have to do it right."

Wales criticised Twitter, which he said has needed faster systems for complaints to protect users from abuse, but also said that illegally abusive behaviour was an edge case that shouldn't deter mainstream internet users.