The White House is set to propose major changes to the NSA phone metadata surveillance program amid criticism over citizens' privacy.

President Obama is set to announce a new proposal designed to scale back one of the most sweeping and controversial U.S. national security surveillance programs, according to a report published late Monday.

The proposal, which will be presented to Congress, would end the National Security Agency's collection of vast amounts of data about phone calls made by U.S. citizens, according to the New York Times, which cited "senior administration officials."

The Obama plan is the most significant White House effort yet to address the global furor that was sparked after former NSA contractor Edward Snowden leaked reams of classified documents about the NSA's secret snooping programs. The proposal would end the NSA's bulk collection of so-called phone "metadata," which includes the number the target called, when the call was made and how long the conversation lasted.

The metadata collection program is part of a secret surveillance cqmpiagn that President George W. Bush approved after the 9/11 attacks. It remained hidden from the public for years until the Snowden revelations.

Under the proposal, the phone records would instead be kept in the hands of phone companies. Those companies would not be required to retain the data for a longer period of time than they do now, the Times reported. The proposed policy shift was not unexpected — it was one of the major recommendations of the President's Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies, which delivered its report in December.

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Report: Obama to give up NSA's phone call sweep