The LI-XML Initiative

The Challenge

The Lawful Interception process consists of a set of actions taken by law enforcement (LEA) or foreign intelligence agencies, judicial, and telecommunication and information system providers or their agents that result in the discovery and production of investigative or evidentiary records.  The process is effected in nearly every country pursuant to national or local law.

In most instances – especially for law enforcement - the lawful intercept legal process remains relatively primitive, slow, costly, and cumbersome.  The initiating processes are paper-based.  Authentication - if it's done - is done by personal recognition or a phone call.  The diverse variety of justice actors and formats make verification difficult.  Fax or hand carriage is the prevailing means of transportation.  Access and safeguarding is physical.  Set up of intercepts is a manual process. Audit trails usually consist of ledgers or collections of forms.

The interfaces and standards for electronic communication intercepts that do exist are generally limited, dated, and don't necessarily guarantee interoperability.  The few syntax specifications that do exist are done using legacy ASN.1 schema.  Companies in the product or service business in this field, not to mention LEAs, face a substantial challenge in making it all work to meet the requirements and exigencies of today.  Many of these difficulties are common to legal and justice systems in general.

Significantly, remedying this challenge is a major part of the recently enacted Homeland Security Information Sharing Act of 2002 in the USA.  A LI-XML Frequently Asked Questions tabulation provides further information.

The OASIS LI-XML Technical Committee

In order to effectively address the above challenge, an LI-XML Technical Committee is being chartered within the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS).  The Committee formation was announced 22 November 2002 by OASIS.

The Committee's work is centered around a LI-XML Schema for the development of a structured XML based Lawful Intercept Process and set of specifications for the secure open creation and use of information objects and the attendant authentication, verification, implementation, and transport actions. Although the work is largely occurring within the Technical Committee, it will encompass multiple Lawful Intercept (LI) XML related schema and translations produced across multiple professional disciplines and forums.

The ultimate objective is to create a lawful intercept process that effects a high availability, highly secure and authenticated end-to-end capability that includes: 1) a LEA request for a judicial or administrative order or authorization, 2) the issuance of the order or authorization, 3) transmittal and implementation to implementing parties, and 4) return of intercepts and reports back to the LEA with minimal possible delay.  Apart from judicial or administrative deliberations, there is no reason why this entire process should not ensue in a matter of seconds using contemporary technology.

This LI-XML framework must be global and flexible to encompass a wide array of legal, administrative, and technical systems, as well as recursive LEA activity (i.e., get and analyze administrative reference information, get and analyze signaling data, get content.)

Internet and WWW based applications over the past several years have become the basis for achieving similar objectives across many different commercial and governmental sectors.  In particular, the evolution of XML (eXtensible Markup Language) as an extended WWW protocol has achieved widespread mindshare as the specific mechanism of information process and data interoperability.  OASIS assumption of responsibility for LegalXML, and its LI-related working groups on eNotary can provide a global venue for this LI process activity.

LI-XML Reference Material

A collection of LI-XML related forums and activities is available.

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Last modified: 04 Dec 2002

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