The Dutch security service AIVD does not have to publicise the number of phone and internet taps it sets up a year, judges in The Hague said on Thursday.

The security service regulator CTIVD had wanted to go public with the number of phone and internet taps but home affairs minister Ronald Plasterk scrapped them from the organisation’s annual report.

The court ruled that publishing more information about the number of phone taps would make it possible to find out too much about the way the organisation works.

Rise

The report did state the number of security service taps rose 11% between September 2012 and August 2013.

The Netherlands is already the most heavily phone-tapped country in the world.

The number of police phone taps rose 3% to nearly 25,500 in 2012, according to justice ministry figures. And the number of requests for information about phone calls – such as the location calls were made from – reached almost 57,000, up 10% on 2011.