LAWS that govern spying on private communications by government agencies will be reviewed in the wake of the claims made by the CIA whistleblower Edward Snowden.
It comes after GCHQ was cleared of improper use of a secret American system to keep tabs on potential suspects with a parliamentary committee ruling the listening post based in Cheltenham had played by the rules.
The parliamentary intelligence and security committee said GCHQ had ticked all of the boxes when it went after data from the Prism programme.
Despite giving the listening post the all clear the committee has said it will be reviewing the regulations which dictate how and in what circumstances private data can be accessed.
GCHQ had been accused of "spying through the back door" on UK citizens.
The committee found this accusation to be "unfounded".
