A Geneva-based nuclear laboratory, the birthplace of the World Wide Web, celebrated the 30th anniversary of the global information system on Tuesday.

The World Wide Web, commonly known as the Web, is an information space where documents and other web resources are identified by Uniform Resource Locators, which may be interlinked by hypertext, and are accessible via the Internet.

It, however, highlighted the benefits that basic science could bring to the general public.

In March 1989, British physicist and computer scientist, Tim Berners-Lee, presented a short paper at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN).

Berners-Lee proposed a system to manage and link the vast amount of scientific information generated by this institution.

CERN Director General, Fabiola Gianotti, also noted that the paper was a vision that came to transform society and the way humanity access information and connect at a global level.

CERN, which is focused on finding the smallest building blocks of the universe, decided in the 1990s to make the World Wide Web technology freely available without collecting royalties.

“Basic science, with its ambitious goals, brings cutting-edge technological development in many areas, and can impact society in a profound way,’’ Gianotti said.

The internet, which is older than Berners-Lee’s invention, is the term for the global network of individual computer networks.

The World Wide Web is one of the best-known systems to encode and browse information on the internet.

“Fifty per cent of humanity is using this web thing; you’ve got to step back and look at it,’’ Berners-Lee said at CERN, calling for the protection of privacy, personal data and free speech online.