LONDON: The head of the watchdog responsible for scrutinising Britain’s intelligence agencies has defended their spying techniques but admitted that the whistleblower Edward Snowden has raised “real issues” about safeguarding privacy in the 21st century.

Sir Malcolm Rifkind argued that the UK had an “effective and extensive system of independent oversight” of the three services — GCHQ, MI5 and MI6 (the Government Communications headquarters, domestic and foreign intelligence).

He also claimed people were “well aware British intelligence agencies have neither the time nor the remotest interest in the emails or telephone conversations of well over 99 per cent of the population”.

However, he appeared to concede that the laws governing the agencies may need to be refreshed in the light of revelations about the intelligence-gathering programmes run by GCHQ and its US counterpart, the National Security Agency.

“There are real issues that do arise out of the Snowden affair in Britain, as elsewhere,” said Rifkind, who chairs the parliamentary intelligence and security committee (ISC).

“Even if the intelligence agencies always act within the law it must be right for that law to be reviewed from time to time to see whether the safeguards are adequate. Sometimes they are not.”

The ISC is currently reviewing the three laws governing Britain’s spy services — the Intelligence Services Act, the Human Rights Act and the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act.

His concession came amid further claims about GCHQ published in the German magazine Spiegel Online. In a piece published on Friday, it said GCHQ had been targeting the Belgian telecoms giant Belgacom, whose major customers include the European parliament and the European commission. The operation, codenamed “Socialist”, had given GCHQ the ability to secretly hack into Belgacom for at least three years.

Rifkind wrote to the Guardian in response to a comment piece by one of the paper’s regular columnists, Simon Jenkins, who condemned the lack of proper debate in the UK about the Snowden disclosures.

Highly classified files have revealed secret capabilities to undertake mass surveillance of the web and mobile phone networks. This is done by trawling the servers of internet companies and collecting raw data from the undersea cables that carry web traffic.

These programmes, called Prism and Tempora, revealed GCHQ and the NSA can sweep up and store vast amounts of personal data. The Guardian recently revealed how GCHQ and the NSA have successfully cracked much of the online encryption relied upon by hundreds of millions of people to protect their privacy.

Jenkins accused Rifkind of having a grovelling attitude towards GCHQ and said the ISC was incapable of providing proper levels of scrutiny in the face of such ambitious spying projects.

He described Rifkind and the foreign secretary, William Hague, as “the useful idiots of the security classes” and added, “We have created a monster that has overwhelmed the defences put in place to regulate it.”

In his riposte Rifkind said it was “absolute rubbish” to suggest Britain’s intelligence services could spy on people without regard to their privacy. He also defended the ISC, saying it had more powers and a bigger budget to provide more effective scrutiny.“Our system is not perfect,” said Rifkind. “There are occasions when the intelligence obtained may be of such little value as not to justify the diminution in privacy associated with obtaining it. But I have yet to hear of any other country, either democratic or authoritarian, that has both significant intelligence agencies and a more effective and extensive system of independent oversight than the UK and the US.”

Eric King, head of research at Privacy International, said Rifkind and his committee were part of the problem, not the solution. “Stating that British intelligence agencies have “neither the time nor the remotest interest” in the communications of the 99 per cent of the public, but acknowledging that regardless those communications are swept up and monitored, should not offer any comfort to the public whose fundamental right to privacy remains violated. Intelligence agencies are there to protect citizens, but in placing those same citizens under suspicion-less surveillance and inserting back doors in the very security standards we rely on to communicate with confidence, the agencies have lost the trust of those they are meant to serve.”

King said that mass surveillance “must never be accepted as legitimate in a democratic society.

“The current legal framework is not fit for purpose, and the ISC’s credibility as an independent oversight committee will continue to decline until this fundamental fact is accepted.”

Shami Chakrabarti, director of the human rights group Liberty, said, “Sir Malcolm’s personal attack on Simon Jenkins was unbecoming. That critics of blanket surveillance have touched such a raw nerve highlights the woeful inadequacy of checks and balances, including the ISC itself.”

Human Rights Watch said governments had to “aggressively protect online privacy through stronger laws and policies”. Without this, the internet could be severely compromised.

“The shocking revelations of mass monitoring by the US and UK show how privacy protections have not kept pace with technology,” said Cynthia Wong, a researcher at Human Rights Watch.

“As our lives become more digitised, unchecked surveillance can corrode everyone’s rights and the rule of law.”

The organisation has endorsed a set of international principles on the application of human rights to communications surveillance.

By arrangement with the Guardian