London, March 14 (RHC)-- British lawmakers have, for the first time, acknowledged that the country’s spy agencies are snooping on private communication data in bulk. A report by Parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee has found that the spies are reading thousands of private communications every day. But it says the interception does not count as blanket surveillance or reading everyone's emails.

"Given the extent of targeting and filtering involved, it is evident that while GCHQ's bulk interception capability may involve large numbers of emails, it does not equate to indiscriminate surveillance," a committee member said.

The report does not specify the exact number of intercepted data. But it is the most detailed public disclosure yet of Britain's electronic snooping abilities.

Alan Hart, a London-based author, journalist and researcher told Press TV that the House of Commons’ intelligence security committee would not have looked into the matter if U.S. whistleblower Edward Snowden had not made the revelations about how much people are being spied upon.

Britain's GCHQ and its American counterpart, the National Security Agency, were at the center of a storm following leaks from former U.S. intelligence contractor Snowden. The two agencies are accused of eavesdropping on not only some of the top world leaders but even ordinary citizens across the globe.

According to the revelations made Snowden, GCHQ received private communications intercepted by the NSA through its “mass surveillance” programs, Prism and Upstream.