Report of the HRD on the activities of the National Preventive Mechanism in Poland in 2011 OPCAT, which stipulates that confidential information collected by the national preventive mechanism shall be privileged. No personal data shall be published without the express consent of the person concerned. Furthermore, the Act also stipulates that the Defender has the powers to perform the functions of the national preventive mechanism. Pursuant to the amendment, the Defender also has the right to record sound or image in places where persons deprived of liberty are kept upon consent25 of such persons, and to meet with persons deprived of liberty unaccompanied by other persons; the Defender may also meet with other persons who in her opinion may provide important information. Therefore, the possibility to carry out full, legal visits was restored. It must be emphasized that pursuant to Article 21(1) of OPCAT no authority or official shall order, apply, permit or tolerate any sanction against any person or organization for having communicated to the national preventive mechanism any information, whether true or false, and no such person or organization shall be otherwise prejudiced in any way. All visits under the National Preventive Mechanism are unannounced. The objective of monitoring any place of detention is to obtain the most accurate image of the visited establishment. If such visits were announced in advance, they could give a distorted image of everyday life in the place of detention, since their announcement would give the administration time to prepare, and, possibly, to conceal real problems. An unannounced visit to an establishment allows the visiting team to see the reality, and collect facts about the observance of the rights of detainees or kinds of violation of such rights. In all the visited establishments, the National Preventive Mechanism operates based on the same methodology. The first stage is to establish the composition of the visiting group. According to OPCAT, experts of national mechanisms should have the required capabilities and professional knowledge. The visiting team usually consists of 4 persons, including 2 women and 2 men, with one person performing the role of the group coordinator. Two persons, including the team coordinator responsible for drawing up the report from the visit, perform the inspection of the premises and buildings of the establishment, while others conduct individual talks with prisoners. The length of a visit depends on the size of the visited establishment and on the problems encountered on site. It usually lasts for 1 to 3 days. The visits of the National Preventive Mechanism have the following stages: • Talks with the management; • Inspection of all rooms; • Individual and group talks with the detainees; • Talks with the personnel; • Analysis of documents; • Formulation of post-visit recommendations during the talk summing up the visit, and receiving explanations from the management.  Images and sound registered in such a way are kept in the Office of the Human Rights Defender for the period required in a given case, however not longer than for 10 years. 25 24