USE OF TELEPHONES (OPINION) one hand, the only regulation of telephone use (other than the rarely implemented call duration) is the one established between prisoners: the weakest among them therefore are far less likely (if at all) to have access to the telephone than others. On the other hand, there can be significant pressure from fellow prisoners to use the telephone to dial numbers that have not been previously approved. Finally, confidential conversations are not possible. In institutions where the telephone is installed in the passageways, no additional precautions are taken to preserve confidentiality with respect to third parties. In detention centres with an "open" cell regime, telephones are often installed near the gate that closes off the passageway, where prisoners are most inclined to congregate. This configuration also facilitates all forms of pressure. Respect for private and family life necessitates, on the one hand, stopping the practice of installing telephones in exercise yards or collective rooms; and on the other hand, constructing veritable phone booths - as is already the case in some institutions - which enable conversations to remain private from other prisoners, as the Contrôleur général has already underlined in several recommendations. 4/ The number of telephone numbers approved by the administration, based on requests from the prisoners concerned, varies from one institution to another despite its establishment in a memorandum from the director of the prisons administration dated 29th  October 2009. It would be highly desirable, subject to the necessary approval for each, that this number be standardised, otherwise, in the case of transfer, the prisoner may have to relinquish calls to certain persons. Furthermore, this number cannot be too small without compromising the scope of the principle set out in article 30 of the Penitentiary law. 5/ Certain obstacles to telephone authorisation raised by the procedures currently in place must be removed. There is thus no reason that the authorised recipients of calls should be those with visiting permits (in fact there are grounds for the contrary): this is not provided for in the legislation. Furthermore, in all cases authorisation cannot be subject to the production of telephone bills by the persons who should be the recipients of calls: not only is this production impertinent to legal entities (e.g. the Pôle emploi employment centre), but there are some countries in which paper invoicing does not exist (Belgium, for example). Prisoners' correspondents must therefore be 67