Google chief legal officer has criticized President Obama's approach to intelligence shortly after ex-NSA contractor Edward Snowden gave his first TV interview.

David Drummond, the tech giant's chief legal officer, told BBC that the US needed to change its approach to intelligence to restore trust in the internet.

He described Obama's high-profile speech on intelligence, delivered on 17 January at the Department of Justice in Washington, as a "positive step".

But he said the president's proposals - which mainly focused on limiting the mass collection of phone call information, or metadata - were not enough.

"Let me be clear about it, in general they fall short of where any of the speech and the proposal and the speech fell short of where we'd like to see this go," Drummond said.

"But I think it was a first step for the administration, it's not the final word on where this will go, hopefully, we intend to be very engaged in that debate."

"People really need to trust the internet and to trust internet companies and that really underpins a lot of the innovation," Drummond added.

"We've been concerned about the long-term user trust in the internet and what that means for acceptance for new innovations," he added.

"If you build something great but people are worried or won't try it because they're afraid, then it's not going to work."

Earlier in the day Snowden, who has been in exile in Russia since leaking the information that lifted the lid on the scale of US and UK intelligence programs, told Germany's public broadcaster ARD that the NSA practiced "industrial espionage".

He also said he believed that US officials wanted to kill him.