Ministers have been ordered to reconsider their refusal to publish how often the security services tap people’s phones and internet.

The Council of State, the highest Dutch administrative court, said on Wednesday that the government needs to improve the reasoning behind its refusal to publish the details. The case was brought by internet privacy campaigner Bits of Freedom.

Home affairs minister Ronald Plasterk has consistently refused to publish information about security service phone taps on the grounds of national security. But Bits of Freedom disputes this. ‘Statistics are no danger to national security,’ spokesman Rejo Zenger told the NRC.

The government’s own security service regulator CTIVD has also ordered the government to come clean.

New law

Plasterk has just published new draft legislation which will give the security services greater powers to tap phones and the internet.

The new law will scrap the difference between fixed link and cable communication and introduces a new commission which will assess all applications to tap cable connections in advance.

The commission, given the acronym TIB, will be made up of judges, Plasterk said. In addition, a limit will placed on the length of time information gathered via taps can be stored, although this has not yet been finalised.

The CTIVD will also be given more powers and will establish an independent complaints procedure. Ministers hope the beefed-up regulatory powers will offset some of the widespread criticism levelled at the draft legislation when it was first published last year. Some described it as a ‘big brother charter’.