CAT/OP/NZL/1 69. The Subcommittee recommends that appropriate steps be taken to remedy inadequacies in police stations and cells, including insufficient ventilation, dampness and inadequate sanitary facilities, with priority given to those gazetted as jails. Furthermore, consideration should be given to enabling or improving natural lighting and heating and ventilation systems. The Subcommittee also recommends that cells continue to be kept clean and that all graffiti be regularly removed. 70. The Subcommittee noted with concern the lack of privacy in most cells in the majority of police stations it visited, whether old or newly constructed. Although all cells had partitions, these were often so slight as to provide no real privacy at all. In some cases, toilet pans had been added to cells at a later stage, were usually located directly opposite the cell door and could be seen through the door windows. Toilets located in a corner of the cells still had a peephole in the walls enabling a full view from the corridor. In facilities with closed-circuit television surveillance in the cells, the Subcommittee also noted the lack of privacy, as toilets were in full view of the camera. With regard to privacy in the showers, the Subcommittee noted cases where persons using them were fully visible either from the corridor (for example, the women’s showers at Wellington central police hub) or, in one case, by other prisoners from the day room to which the shower was adjacent (Nelson police station). The use of closed-circuit television inside some cells also infringed privacy during the carrying out of body searches and, in one instance observed by the Subcommittee, even though the cell blinds had been lowered so that the search could be conducted in private, the search was still monitored on the closed-circuit television screens, including by officers of the opposite sex. There was also a lack of privacy in some rooms used by legal counsel to interview detainees and the Subcommittee noted that the noise generated by the use of the telephones within interview rooms impeded the privacy of conversations and made it necessary to resort to shouting. 71. The Subcommittee recommends, as a matter of urgency, that national standards be developed for custodial cells. Noting the need to balance the right to privacy with security and safety needs, the Subcommittee recommends that efforts be made to block the peepholes or add blinds in all non-at-risk cells, in order to better protect the privacy of individuals when using toilets and showers. In this respect, the Subcommittee recommends that where closed-circuit television cameras are used, they must not cover the toilet area. When carrying out strip searches and monitoring detainees at risk, who require constant surveillance through closed-circuit television, the Subcommittee recommends that monitors be placed out of public view in the custody suite. 72. The Subcommittee also noted a diversity of practice in police stations regarding the manner in which detainees were informed of their rights. Written information was generally lacking, except for some posters setting out the rights of persons detained by the police and about the Independent Police Complaints Authority, displayed on the walls in the processing area in a minority of the police stations visited. During the course of its interviews, the Subcommittee heard from some detainees that they had not had their rights explained to them at all during the initial stages of their detention. 73. The Subcommittee recommends that notices in appropriate languages, setting out the fundamental rights of persons arrested and/or detained be placed systematically in police stations in places where they can be easily seen and read. 74. The Subcommittee noticed some irregularities in the manner in which the records of prisoners’ property were kept. These included incomplete forms, which were neither signed nor dated and which did not properly record the receipt and return of the property concerned. The Subcommittee also found some cases in which records were kept in paper copy only and in files containing a wide range of information, including medical risk assessments, while in other cases such records were in electronic form and attached to the 15