Prime Minister Dick Schoof has banned smartphones and other electronic devices from official Cabinet meetings. Ministers, State Secretaries, and other civil servants have to put their devices in a separate safe. “The threat of espionage is timeless and this was a completely self-evident measure,” the Prime Minister explained the measure before the Council of Ministers on Friday, NOS reports.

Schoof, formerly the head of the intelligence service AIVD, stressed that all “electronic devices” have microphones and that countries are interested in the decision-making of the Netherlands. “You must want to prevent that, so this is a very simple measure,” he said.