Providing CALEA/legal intercept information to law enforcement agencies for internet protocol multimedia subsystems (IMS)
View Patent ↗A method and apparatus for providing useful packet data to a CALEA/Legal Intercept collection function. At an access point to a network such as the Internet, sources and destinations of data connections are examined to determine whether any of the bearer messages should also be routed to a CALEA/Legal Intercept monitoring system. If this condition is recognized, the bearer messages and corresponding signaling control messages are correlated in a call packet delivery application server and then delivered to a CALEA/Legal Intercept monitoring system. Advantageously, the monitoring receives as a bundled message set the bearer message and the control messages used to route and otherwise process these bearer messages.
1. In an Internet Protocol Multimedia System (IMS), a method of providing bearer data to a CALEA/Legal Intercept System, comprising the steps of:
receiving said bearer data and related session initiation protocol (SIP) messages over a direct connection at an access system connectable to the Internet;
at said access system, recognizing that said SIP messages designate a source or destination being monitored by a CALEA/Legal Intercept System; and
responsive to said recognition, sending said bearer data and said related SIP messages from said access system to said CALEA/Legal Intercept System in temporal order of receipt by the access function without passing through the Internet.
2. The method of claim 1 wherein the step of sending said bearer data and said related SIP messages to said CALEA/Legal Intercept System comprises the steps of:
sending said bearer data and said related SIP messages from said access system to a call packet delivery application server;
in said application server, associating SIP messages with corresponding bearer data; and
sending the associated SIP messages bundled with said corresponding bearer data directly to said CALEA/Legal collection function without passing through the Internet when a court order allows.
3. The method of claim 2 wherein said bearer data is sent from a mobile station.
4. The method of claim 2 wherein said bearer data is sent from a land-line station.
5. In an Internet Protocol Multimedia System (IMS), apparatus for providing bearer data to a CALEA/Legal Intercept System, comprising:
means for receiving said bearer data and related session initiation protocol (SIP) messages over a direct connection at an access system connectable to the Internet;
at said access system, means for recognizing that said SIP messages designate a source or destination being monitored by a CALEA/Legal Intercept System; and
means, responsive to said recognition, for sending said bearer data and said related SIP messages from said access system to said CALEA/Legal Intercept System in temporal order of receipt by the access function without passing through the Internet.
6. The apparatus of claim 5 wherein the means for sending said bearer data and said related SIP messages to said CALEA/Legal Intercept System comprise:
means for sending said bearer data and said related SIP messages to a call packet delivery application server;
in said application server, means for associating SIP messages with corresponding bearer data; and
means for sending the associated SIP messages bundled with said corresponding bearer data to said CALEA/Legal collection function without passing through the Internet when a court order allows.
7. The apparatus of claim 6 wherein said bearer data is sent from a mobile station.
8. The apparatus of claim 6 wherein said bearer data is sent from a land-line station.