France continues to seethe following a report published in the newspaper Le Monde which revealed the extent to which the US National Security Agency collected the private telephone data of millions of French citizens.

In response to the revelations of mass, state operated surveillance programmes the EU has updated current data protection legislation.

The revisions are the first since 1995.

Jan Philipp Albrecht from the EU Civil Liberties Committee said: “There are very few member states who still oppose a European standard for data protection. I think this is unacceptable these days, when citizens know that their personal details are flowing across borders in milliseconds.”

Changes to EU data protection law allows the imposition of fines of up to 100 million euro on internet firms if they breach the legislation.

Following a telephone conversation between President Barack Obama and President François Hollande, Obama indicated that the US was reviewing how it gathers intelligence to balance security and privacy concerns.