Blog

ETSI Technical Committee Lawful Interception Meeting

September 8, 2015

The highlight of the meeting was the approval and publication of TS 103 120: Handover Interface 1: Interface for Warrant Information. This specification defines how law enforcement and other agencies can electronically submit Warrant and Tasking information to Communication Service Providers (CSP). The focus is primarily on LI but leaves room for future extensions to support lawful orders for Retained Data (RD) requests. This specification also makes use of the TS 103 280 Dictionary for Common Parameters that was published out of the last meeting.

The meeting launched new work to specify Internal Network Interfaces for Lawful Interception, including the X-1 interface for provisioning Intercept Access Points (IAP) and Delivery Functions (DF) specification (DTS 103 221-1), and the X-3 interface for delivering content from IAP to DF for subsequent delivery over HI-3 to the Law Enforcement Monitoring Function (LEMF) specification (future DTS 103 221-3). No work is started yet on a DTS 103 221-2 for an X-2 interface (corresponding to HI-2).

Work is also started on SR 003 291 Guide to Lawful Interception and Retained Data standards and concepts. There are currently 48 ETSI specifications published or being drafted and a need exists to provide guidance to users on the role that each plays. It was also noted that in the future, some of these might be moved to historical status.

The meeting was briefed on the progress being made in the ETSI Network Functions Virtualization Security working group (NFV SEC) on the requirements for LI and RD when network nodes become virtualized in the Cloud. The meeting is also coordinating with ETSI TC Cyber to define the RD and LI interfaces security mechanisms to be cited in specifications for LI and RD. The meeting also discussed the special challenges by visiting roamers on local visited networks supported in VoLTE through a feature called S8 Home Routing (S8HR). The GSMA, 3GPP, and ETSI are coordinating on both technical and operational requirements around both S8HR and Local Breakout (LBO) deployment models.