organised, or at the very least intercom devices should be installed, connecting the secure room to a designated soldier, in order to ensure continuity of surveillance. The condition of police custody cells in police stations is variable, some of them being in a proper state of cleanliness, while others are in a disgraceful state. Issuance of a clean blanket and hygiene necessaries varies according to the police station; access to a shower remains exceptional. In the vast majority of police custody facilities, as a general rule, brassières and spectacles are taken away. This is also the case in customs detention cells. In order to ensure protection of personal dignity, this rule, whose application is not justified by any real security requirements, should only be an exception made on justified grounds 18. In prisons, use of the telephone is still unsatisfactory, with regard in particular to respect for the right to privacy and family life as defined under article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The telephones, which in most cases consist of open phone points located in yards and passageways, do not enable protection of the privacy, or even confidentiality, of conversations. This is the case of the prison of Rennes-Vezin, which the Council of State (in a ruling of 23rd July 2014 confirming a provisional order in an urgent matter pronounced by the administrative court of Rennes on 23rd April 2014) enjoined to take all necessary measures in order to ensure the confidentiality of exchanges made by telephone between prisoners and their lawyers, with regard to both the prisons administration and other prisoners. Furthermore, hours of access to the telephone for prisoners are in the morning or afternoon; it is only rarely possible to telephone after 5:30 PM. It is therefore very difficult for them to contact their children of school age and partners, who generally work at these times. This situation does not promote the maintenance of family ties. Finally, the cost of telephone communications – for foreigners in particular – is out of all proportion to that of traditional telephone subscriptions. In detention centres for illegal immigrants, detainees are too often, or even in most cases, informed of their time of departure and destination at the last moment, when they are informed thereof at all. The principle fixed by article L. 553-5 of the Code for Entry and Residence of Foreigners and Right of Asylum provides that foreigners shall be informed “except … if the person does not appear to be psychologically capable of receiving this information”. In psychiatric hospitals and health institutions authorised to cater for patients hospitalised without their consent, the traceability of placements in seclusion and physical restraint measures is, in general, not organised. It is thus difficult to verify that these treatment measures, which fall within the framework of medical prescription, are not used for other purposes of a punitive nature. 4. Actions taken in response to cases referred Article 6 of the Act of 30th October 2007 instituting a Contrôleur général des lieux de privation de liberté provides that “all natural persons, as well as any corporation set up for the purpose of ensuring respect for fundamental rights, may bring facts or situations to the attention of the Contrôleur général des lieux de privation de liberté that are likely to come within his area of competence. 18 As expressly mentioned in the Act of 14th April 2011 concerning police custody. 32