|
LAWFUL INTERCEPTION Activity Report 2008
Chairman: Peter van der Arend (Vodafone Group Plc)
Responsible for developing standards that allow support of the
requirements of national and international law for the lawful interception of
electronic communications where those communications services are built using
ETSI or other open standards.
Lawful interception (LI) plays a crucial role in helping law enforcement
agencies to combat terrorism and serious criminal activity. It is therefore an
essential part of the infrastructure supporting electronic transactions. As
such, it is a key factor in the growth and development of the Information
Society.
The providers of public telecommunications networks and services are legally
required to make available to law enforcement authorities the information
necessary to enable them to monitor telecommunications traffic in support of
investigations of criminal activities.
Global interest in the work of ETSI’s Lawful Interception Technical Committee
(TC LI) continues to grow, with increasing attendance at plenary meetings.
In 2008, TC LI focussed primarily on activities in response to the European
Union Directive on Data Retention (2006/24) which stipulates that data generated
or processed in connection with the provision of publicly available electronic
communications services or of public communications networks must be retained.
TC LI completed a new ETSI Technical Specification (TS) on the handover
interface for the request and delivery of retained data, which will enable
governments to implement the requirements of the Directive, and the existing
specifications on the requirements of law enforcement agencies for the handling
of retained data were revised. TC LI now has a permanent seat on the EC’s Expert
Group, the ‘Platform for Electronic Data Retention for the Investigation,
Detection and Prosecution of Serious Crime’, and will continue to monitor
developments.
TC LI also finalised an ETSI Technical Report (TR) which defines a security
framework for securing LI and the Retained Data environment of the Communication
Service Provider (CSP) and the handover of the information, and offers guidance
on implementation. Work in this area will continue in 2009.
Maintenance of the multi-part TS on the handover interface and Service-Specific
Details (SSD) for IP delivery for various services continues; a number of the
component parts were revised in 2008 and an additional part for mobile services
was added.
The Technical Report on ASN.1 object identifiers in LI specifications was also
updated.
Throughout 2008, TC LI worked closely with other committees within ETSI on
lawful interception aspects of their standards including the Access, Terminals,
Transmission and Multiplexing (TC ATTM), Terrestrial Trunked Radio (TC TETRA),
Satellite Earth Stations and Systems (TC SES) and Telecommunication and Internet
converged Services and Protocols for Advanced Networking (TC TISPAN) Technical
Committees.
TC LI collaborates closely with the LI group in the Third Generation Partnership
Project (3GPP™) (SA3-LI) on lawful interception for the Universal Mobile
Telecommunications System (UMTS™) and the Global System for Mobile Communication
(GSM™). By monitoring each other’s activities, the two groups ensure that their
respective LI specifications are aligned. TC LI also liaises with the
Telecommunications standardisation sector of the International Telecommunication
Union (ITU-T).
To help raise the profile of TC LI and its work on lawful interception and
retained data, in 2008 the Chairman gave presentations at the Intelligence
Support Systems (ISS) World conference meetings in Dubai, Singapore and Prague,
and at the Brisbane National Telecommunications conference in Australia. TC LI
is pioneering the development of LI and ETSI’s LI standards are being adopted
around the world. New contacts have been made with parties interested in ETSI’s
lawful interception activities; some of these, including a Brazilian company,
have joined TC LI and become ETSI Members.
In 2009, new work will be initiated on dynamic triggering and Call Content
Triggering Function (CCTF) standardisation. Service and network architectures
are becoming increasingly non-monolithic, with multiple operators involved in
supplying a service to a single user. It is not unusual for the service provider
at the application or signalling layer to be different from the access provider.
In addition, for some services it is necessary to have the option to intercept
the core network where there is not always a link between the identifier used in
the application layer (e.g. IMS IMPUs/IMPI) and the identifiers used in the
access/transport domain (usually an IP address). The work may include adoption
and standardisation of the CCTF used by TC TISPAN. TC LI will work closely with
TC TISPAN and 3GPP as necessary, to develop a common solution for dynamic
triggering.
|
