Snowden documents revealed Tempora, a GCHQ program operational since late 2011, which intercepted data from fiber-optic cables forming the backbone of the internet. GCHQ placed intercepts on over 200 cables, each carrying 10 gigabits per second, buffering content for 3 days and metadata for 30 days. The data was shared with the NSA. At its peak, GCHQ was processing 600 million 'telephone events' per day. The program operated under secret legal interpretations that were never publicly debated or approved by Parliament.