The government of Prime Minister David Cameron last year proposed legislation that would have given the secret services broad digital surveillance powers, including access to e-mail records and the digital addresses used to identify computers. The proposal followed street riots in London, which Mr. Cameron said were fueled by the use of private communications networks like BlackBerry Messenger.

Opposition from the Liberal Democratic Party, the junior partner to Mr. Cameron’s Conservatives in the governing coalition, appeared to sink the bill this spring. But there has been talk of reviving it in the wake of an attack in London last month, in which a man was hacked to death.

In the Netherlands, too, the authorities have been pushing for broader digital surveillance powers. A draft bill would let the Dutch police break into the computers of crime suspects, including those based outside the country. The country’s Intelligence Act is also being revised, and there has been talk of adding snooping abilities like those apparently possessed by the N.S.A.

“There will be a lot of jealousy among services that the U.S. has these powers,” said Simone Halink, a spokeswoman for Bits of Freedom, a Dutch digital rights group. “The fact that a powerful government is doing this, and saying it is doing it in accordance with the law, is alarming and a reason for increased vigilance.”

In Europe, privacy is also a business and trade issue. The European Union is actively debating how best to update its data protection laws for the digital era. The process has been shaped by an intense trans-Atlantic lobbying campaign by U.S. Internet companies that want to soften some of the proposed privacy protections, which worry that tight strictures could crimp online advertising sales and other digital commerce.

European privacy advocates said Friday that the disclosure of Prism could bolster the push for stricter data protection in the new laws, including a proposed “right to be forgotten,” which would let Internet users scrub unflattering online references to themselves.

Members of the European Parliament said outrage over Prism could also increase pressure on European trade negotiators to demand American respect for the European Union privacy rules as in coming months they attempt to work out a trans-Atlantic trade pact. That effort is intended to drop trade barriers between the Union and the United States and seek to synchronize regulations.