Internet bill of rights need of hour: Web founder

As the Internet turns 25, the inventor of the world wide web has called for a digital bill of rights to protect net users from surveillance and explore principles of privacy and free speech.

Tim Berners-Lee said that an online "Magna Carta" is the need of the hour to protect and enshrine the independence of the Internet and the rights of its users globally.

New rules are needed to protect the "open, neutral" system of the web which has come under increasing attack from governments and corporate influence, the British computer scientist told the Guardian.

"We need a global constitution - a bill of rights," Berners-Lee said exactly 25 years after drafting the first proposal of web on March 12, 1989.

The plan is a part of an initiative called "the web we want", which calls for generating a digital bill of rights in each country.

"Unless we have an open, neutral Internet we can rely on without worrying about what's happening at the back door, we can't have open government, good democracy, good healthcare, connected communities and diversity of culture," said Berners-Lee.

Berners-Lee is a known critic of the US and British spy agencies' surveillance of citizens following the revelations by National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower Edward Snowden, the report said.

The Magna Carta scheme will explore the principles of privacy, free speech and responsible anonymity.

Berners-Lee said that people's rights are being increasingly infringed upon and the danger is that they are getting used to it.

"So I want to use the 25th anniversary for us all to do that, to take the web back into our own hands and define the web we want for the next 25 years," he said.