Internet DRAFT - draft-ietf-ecrit-rough-loc
draft-ietf-ecrit-rough-loc
Internet Engineering Task Force R. Barnes
Internet-Draft M. Lepinski
Intended status: Standards Track BBN Technologies
Expires: January 17, 2013 July 16, 2012
Using Imprecise Location for Emergency Context Resolution
draft-ietf-ecrit-rough-loc-05.txt
Abstract
Emergency calling works best when precise location is available for
emergency call routing. However, there are situations in which a
location provider is unable or unwilling to provide precise location,
yet still wishes to enable subscribers to make emergency calls. This
document describes the level of location accuracy that providers must
provide to enable emergency call routing. In addition, we describe
additional rules for networks and endpoints to enable emergency
calling by endpoints that do not have access to precise location.
Status of this Memo
This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.
Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute
working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet-
Drafts is at http://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.
Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."
This Internet-Draft will expire on January 17, 2013.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2012 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
(http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
publication of this document. Please review these documents
carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must
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include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
described in the Simplified BSD License.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3. Location Precision Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
4. Location Filtering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
4.1. Filter Region for a Known Location . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
4.2. Constructing a Location Filter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
4.3. Civic Address Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
4.4. Privileged LoST Servers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
4.5. Maintaining Location Filters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
4.6. Applying Location Filters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
5. Additional Requirements for Networks and Endpoints . . . . . . 14
6. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
7. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
8. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
9. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
9.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
9.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
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1. Introduction
Information about the location of an emergency caller is a critical
input to the process of emergency call establshment. Endpoint
location is used to determine which Public Safety Answering Point
(PSAP) should be the destination of the call. (The entire emergency
calling process is described in detail in [5] and [1].) This process
is most likely to work properly when the endpoint is provided with
the most accurate and precise information available about its
location. Using location information with maximal precision and
accuracy minimizes the chance that a call will be mis-routed.
When location is provided to the endpoint, the endpoint is able to
verify that the location is correct (to the extent of the endpoint's
knowledge of its own location) prior to an emergency call, and is
able to perform emergency call routing functions on its own,
providing redundancy for network-provided functions. Moreover, when
endpoints have access to location information, they can look up PSAP
contact information themselves, reducing dependence on other call-
routing elements in the network, and increasing the overall
resilience of the system.
However, there may be situations in which it is not feasible for
endpoints to be provided with maximally precise and accurate
location. These cases may arise when computing precise location is
an expensive or time-consuming operation (e.g., in the case of
wireless triangulation), and location is needed quickly, as is often
the case in emergency situations. Or they may arise because the
policy of a location provider does not allow precise location to be
provided to the endpoint. While it is undesirable to use imprecise
location for emergency call routing, the possibility that precise
location may not be available to the calling device must be
accomodated in order to make emergency calling possible in the
largest possible set of circumstances.
To put it another way, a need for emergency calling with imprecise
location can arise in two ways. Either the location of the endpoint
is not known to the location provider with a high degree of
precision, or the endpoint's precise location is known and the
location provider chooses to provide location with lower precision.
In the former case, the techniques described in this document can be
used to determine whether a given positioning mechanism provides
sufficient precision to support emergency calling. In the latter
case, such techniques can be used to determine how much a location
value can be "fuzzed" before it becomes unusable for emergency
services.
This document is concerned with imprecise location only in the
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context of routing emergency calls, i.e., for determining the correct
PSAP to receive a given call (e.g., via a LoST query [2]). Depending
on the the structure of the local emergency service network, the
location information provided to the endpoint may also be used to
route the call to an entity that is authorized to request precise
location, e.g., an Emergency Services Routing Proxy. The
requirements and processes described in this document are the same
for both cases. Detailed requirements are discussed in [6]
Location information may also be used in the emergency calling
framework to direct the dispatch of emergency responders. This usage
is treated separately from call routing for purposes of this
document, and this document does not place requirements on the
location provided for dispatch, although it should obviously be as
precise as possible. The only provision for dispatch in this
document is a recommendation that the location provider supply
endpoints with a URI that can be used by a PSAP or other emergency
authority to obtain a different location for use in dispatch,
hopefully more precise than the one used for routing.
This document describes the use of imprecise location information in
the emergency call routing system. Section 3 describes how location
providers can determine the precision necessary to support emergency
call routing, and how they can use this information to optimize
location delivery. Section 5 describes how emergency calls are
placed in such an environment, and how non-emergency services can be
invoked when precise location is not available to the endpoint by
value.
2. Terminology
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
document are to be interpreted as described in [3].
We consider in this document patterns of interaction as described in
[5]. The two main parties of interest are endpoints and location
providers. Endpoints are hosts connected to the Internet that
originate emergency calls in the emergency calling architecture,
while location providers are entities that supply location
information that is used for emergency calling. In addition, we will
discuss how these parties interact with the LoST mapping
infrastructure [7], and with emergency and non-emergency location-
based service providers.
For convenience, we say that location information, either in LoST
queries or in service boundaries, is provided "in geodetic form" if
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it is provided in the "geodetic-2d" LoST location profile, and "in
civic form" if it is provided in the "civic" profile.
The term "precision" is not used in a quantitative sense in this
document. In general, the "precision" of a location value is
determined by the size of its uncertainty region. [8] Higher
precision values have small uncertainty regions and lower precision
values have larger uncertainty regions. The notion of "sufficient
precision for emergency services is defined in Section 3
3. Location Precision Requirements
A location provider wishing to provide location information usable
for emergency call routing requires a mechanism for determining when
a description of location (e.g., a polygon) is precise enough to be
used for emergency call routing. This mechanism might be used to
decide when to terminate a positioning process that converges over
time, or to choose a polygon larger than the known location of the
endpoint (in order to obscure the known location of the endpoint),
while preserving the utility of the location for emergency call
routing.
There are three basic requirements for a location to be usable for
emergency call routing:
1. The location SHOULD be sufficiently precise that a LoST request
with the location and any emergency service URN will return a
unique URI mapping value. This may not be possible in all cases,
e.g., because of overlapping service boundaries creating areas
with non-unique mappings, or because of positioning limitations
that prevent sufficiently precise positioning.
2. When the location of the endpoint is known by the provider to
greater precision than is being provided, the provided location
MUST return the same mappings from LoST, for all emergency
service URNs, as the known location.
3. When the location of the endpoint is known by the provider to
greater precision than is being provided, the provided location
MUST contain the precise location (as a geographic subset).
4. Location Filtering
In effect, the first of these rules divide the world into regions
where each point is served by the same set of emergency services
(i.e., the LoST mappings are the same). We call this division of
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space a "location filter" and the consituent regions of uniformity
"filter regions". The second rule says that the rough location must
be in the same filter region as the precise location. (The third
rule is unrelated to filtering.)
A location filter is a collection of geographical regions satisfying
the following criteria:
1. For any location value that is a subset of a filter region, a
LoST request for any service will return a unique mapping result.
2. Any two locations within the same filter region receive the same
LoST results for all services
Given a location filter, it is easy to determine when a given
location value is sufficiently precise, or to create a less precise
version of location that is still precise enough. Namely, a location
value is precise enough when if fits within a given filter region,
and any superset of a location value (e.g., a polygon containing a
point) can be used as a less precise version of the location value,
as long as it still fits within the same filter region.
4.1. Filter Region for a Known Location
A simple fuzzing algorithm that maintains sufficient precision for
emergency services is to replace a given location value with the
filter region that contains it. Given a known location, a location
server can compute a filter region using a series of LoST queries.
With each service-to-URI mapping, a LoST query provides a service
boundary that represents the set of locations in which that mapping
is valid. A consequence of this is that given a set of service
boundaries for different services, the intersection of those service
boundaries is the region in which all of the corresponding mappings
are valid. If one service boundary corresponds to the area where
"urn:service:sos.fire" is served by "sip:fire@example.com" and
another maps "urn:service:sos.police" to "sip:police@example.com",
then the intersection is the area where both of these mappings are
valid ("urn:service:sos.fire" maps to "sip:fire@example.com" and
"urn:service:sos.police" maps to "sip:police@example.com"). Outside
that area, one or more of the mappings is invalid. So as was
suggested above, the intersection of two service boundaries defines a
set of mappings, and any two locations within that intersection are
equivalent for the purpose of LoST mapping (i.e., emergency call
routing).
Filter regions can be deduced constructed from LoST mappings for a
sample location by intersecting all the service boundaries for
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services available at that point. Figure 1 illustrates how the
filter region containing the point X is the intersection of the
service boundaries for police and fire services that serve X.
sos.police sos.fire sos.ambulance
+-------+ +---------------+
| A | | B |
| | | | +-------+
| X | | X | | X |
+-------+ +---------------+ | |
| C |
+-------+
| | |
| | |
+-------------------+-------------------+
|
V
+-------+-------+
| A | B |
| +-------+ |
| | X | | |
+-------+-------+
| C |
+-------+
|
|
V
+---+
| X |
+---+
Resulting filter region
(police=>A, fire=>B, ambulance=>C)
Figure 1: Generating a Filter Region from a Sample Point
In pseudocode form, algorithm for constructing a filter region from a
point is as follows:
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function filterRegion(X):
Set REGION = the world
For each service URN S in the urn:service:sos namespace
Perform a LoST <findService> query for Y and S
If LoST returned an error
Continue
Set SB = <serviceBoundary> from LoST <findServiceResponse>
If SB is not provided, throw an error
Else set REGION = intersection( REGION, SB )
Return REGION
It is important that the filter take into account all emergency
services available in over the coverage area of the LIS. (That is,
the services listed in the LoST serviceList elements.) The feature
is necessary in order to ensure that calls to all available emergency
services can be routed correctly using rough location values provided
by the filter.
While in principle, a location server could execute this algorithm to
compute a fresh filter region on each query, it is much more
efficient to use the offline algorithm for computing an entire
location filter, described in the next section.
4.2. Constructing a Location Filter
When a location server knows ahead of time that it will be providing
rough location values, it can pre-compute a location filter that
contains all the filter regions for locations it's concerned with.
Once the filter has been computed (as an off-line computation), the
filter region for a given precise location can be found by searching
for the pre-computed region that contains the precise location. When
precise location is not known, a complete filter can be used to test
evaluate the utility of an imprecise location by determining the
degree to which it overlaps with each filter region.
For example, a simple fuzzing algorithm that maintains sufficient
precision for emergency services is to replace a given location value
with the filter region that contains it. This way, the server can
compute the filter off-line (as described below), then provision the
location of each possible device by storing a pointer to the filter
region that contains the device's location.
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Service boundaries for individual services
urn:service:sos.police urn:service:sos.fire
+-------+ +-------+
| A | | C |
| +---+ | +---+---+
| | | | | |
+---+---+ | +---+ |
| B | | D |
+-------+ +-------+
| |
| |
+-----------+------------+
|
V
+-------+
| A,C |
| +---+
| | +---+
+---+ |A,D| +---+
+---+ | |
+---+ |
| B,D |
+-------+
Resulting Location Filter Regions
Figure 2: Generating a Filter from Service Boundaries
The filter regions in a filter can are constructed by taking
intersections of service boundaries. Figure 2 shows a simple
location filter: Starting with a set of four service boundaries for
two different services. The filter that results from taking
intersections of these boundaries has three regions:
1. A region where police calls are directed to A and fire calls are
directed to C.
2. A region where police calls are directed to A and fire calls are
directed to D.
3. A region where police calls are directed to B and fire calls are
directed to D.
These regions satisfy the criteria for a location filter because each
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one has a unique set of mappings and those mappings are valid across
the entire region. The service regions for B and C do not overlap --
there is no place where police calls go to B and fire calls to C --
so there is no (B,C) region.
More generally, a filter region is the intersection of the service
boundaries for all services available within the region. A filter
can be used to determine whether a location is usable for emergency
call routing in the following way:
1. The location SHOULD be contained in exactly one of the regions in
the filter. This guarantees that LoST mappings are unique.
2. When the precise location of the endpoint is known, the provided
location MUST be contained in the same region(s) of the filter as
the known location. This guarantees that LoST queries with the
provided location return the same results as those done with the
known location.
3. When the precise location of the endpoint is known, the provided
location MUST contain the precise location (as a geographic
subset).
Practically speaking, a location filter is built up by computing
filter regions for sample points, using the algorithm described
above. In the example of Figure 2, one would need to sample three
points: One in the (A,C) region, one in the (A,D) region and one in
the (B,D) region. The overall algorithm thus samples random points
until the computed filter regions cover the desired area. (For
simplicity, we assume that the entity performing filtering will only
be using the filter to test locations contained within a particular
geographic "coverage area". In principle, this coverage area could
be the entire world, but assuming a more limited coverage area allows
for a filter to be built more quickly)
function filter(LS_AREA):
Set FILTER = the empty set
Set COVERAGE = the empty set
Set ERR_COUNT = 0
While COVERAGE < LS_AREA && ERR_COUNT < 100
Choose a random uncovered point X in LS_AREA
Compute R = filterRegion(X)
If R != the empty set
Add R to FILTER
Set COVERAGE = union(COVERAGE, R)
Else
ERR_COUNT += 1
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Return FILTER
If the server also stores the lists of URN-URI mappings for each
region, then the filter can also be used as a cache for LoST
mappings; the LoST mappings for a location are the mappings bound to
the region(s) containing it.
If the LoST servers have been provisioned properly then this
algorithm will terminate successfully. If LoST mappings do not cover
a point X, then the filterRegion(X) will return the empty set, and
the algorithm will give up after 100 such queries. This limit on
queries introduces some risk that a small covered area will be left
out of the filter and marked as uncovered; if this is a concern, then
the query limit can be increased, or the algorithm can be explicitly
directed to sample certain specific points.
Of course, if the location server operator has information about
service boundaries through some channel other than LoST, then the
LoST queries above can be replaced by queries to a local store of
mapping information. The choice of random points can also be guided
to ensure that all mapped areas are covered even if there are some
uncovered areas. The location server can also cache service
boundaries acquired during the algorithm to avoid unnecessary LoST
queries.
4.3. Civic Address Considerations
This algorithm actually results in two filters -- one for geodetic
service boundaries and one for civic service boundaries -- since
civic and geodetic boundaries cannot be directly compared or
intersected. It is RECOMMENDED that location servers always compute
a geodetic filter for use with emergency services, since the notion
of civic service boundaries have some inherent ambiguity.
Indeed, the notion of intersection of civic service boundaries has
some dependence on the jurisdiction within which the service
boundaries are defined. Civic service boundaries are comprised of a
set of <civicAddress> elements, each defining a set of civic
addresses that are within the boundary, namely those that match the
civic elements provided.
When computing the intersection of two civic service boundaries, any
<civicAddress> elements that are shared between the two service
boundaries MUST be included in the resulting intersection. When two
<civicAddress> elements in the service boundaries being compared are
different from each other, then their intersection must be computed
according to local addressing standards.
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Note that the resulting filter regions SHOULD still cover the
location server's coverage area, i.e., there should be a filter
region that contains every civic address within the coverage area.
In particular, the server SHOULD NOT use a specific address to
represent a filter region: Such an address would not include many
points in the service region (i.e., it would not meet the third rules
from the lists of rules above). If the server creates a PIDF-LO
document describing a civic address that does not contain the precise
location of the device, then it MUST set the 'method' element of the
PIDF-LO it returns to value 'area-representative' registered in
Section 8.
If the above procedures are not workable for a given scenario, then
the server MAY fall back to geocoding of service boundaries, in which
case the above procedures for geodetic location can be used.
Geocoding may also be necessary in cases where the location of the
target is known as a civic address with limited granularity, with
which service boundaries do not align. For instance, the target's
location may be known to the level of a postal code, but postal code
regions may span multiple PSAP service areas or filter regions. In
such cases, the server MAY geocode the target's location to obtain a
rough geodetic position, which can be dealt with as discussed in
Section 4.6 below.
4.4. Privileged LoST Servers
In certain scenarios, it may be possible that some LoST servers are
authorized to access more precise location information than networks
are willing to reveal to endpoints. For example, a network operator
might allow a LoST server operated by a national authority to access
an endpoint's precise location, even if it does not allow the
endpoint access to this information.
In these situations, the precision required for emergency services
routing is different than in the base case considered above. Rather
than needing location precise enough to identify a given PSAP, the
location value provided to the endpoint only needs to be precise
enough to route the LoST request through the mapping infrastructure
to a LoST server that is authorized to access the endpoint's precise
location. Once the request reaches that server, the server can
request more precise location information and use that information to
route the request further.
Indeed, such privileged LoST server could even be operated by the
network itself. In this case, if an endpoint complies with
requirement ED-52 in [1], it will send its LoST request directly to
the network-provided LoST server, which can look up the client's
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location and return mappings. However, it is possible that clients
will use an alternative LoST resolver, so it is still beneficial to
provide a rough location that can route the request to a nearby
privileged LoST server.
In cases where a network allows one or more privileged LoST servers
to access precise location information, the network MAY designate a
location that is precise enough to reach one of these LoST servers as
precise enough for emergency call routing.
This document does not specify how these privileged LoST servers
could obtain more precise location information from network
operators. One possible solution is to extend LoST to carry a
location reference in addition to a location by value.
4.5. Maintaining Location Filters
As the LoST mappings that underlie the filter change, the filter will
need to be updated. The entity maintaining the filter MUST obtain a
new mapping for a region when an existing mapping expires. The
service boundary from the new mapping is compared to the service
boundary from the old mapping: If they are the same, then the filter
need not be updated. If they differ, then regions in the filter that
intersect either the old service boundary or the new service boundary
will need to be recomputed. Note that since this operation only
requires the server to determine if two service boundaries are
identical, the server need only store a hash of the old boundary to
which it can compare a hash of the new boundary.
4.6. Applying Location Filters
After constructing a location filter, a location server can use it to
optimize how it delivers location. How this is done depends on
whether the location server is trying to reduce the precision of a
known precise location, or trying to determine whether an imprecise
position is good enough for emergency services.
When the location provider knows the precise location of the caller,
a location filter can also be used as a "location cache". That is,
the location provider can simply look up which of the filter regions
contains the caller's precise location and return that region as the
caller's location, or some subset that contains the precise location.
This caching strategy allows an additional optimization in some
cases: If the location server knows that the caller's precise
location will be within the same region for a period of time, it can
instruct the client not to re-query in that time. For instance, if
the server is delivering location over HELD, then it can use the HTTP
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cache-control headers (e.g., Expires). However, the location server
MUST NOT instruct the client to wait for longer than the current
filter is valid; the expiry time of the location MUST be before the
earliest expiry of a LoST mapping used in the filter.
When the location server starts with imprecise location, there are
different ways to apply the filter, depending on the positioning
technique being used. For example with a positioning algorithm that
grows more accurate with time, the filter can tell the server how
long to run the algorithm -- the algorithm can be terminated when the
estimated location (that is, an uncertainty region containing the
device's location) is within one of the regions in the filter.
A location filter can also be used to test whether a database of
rough locations for IP addresses (as is commonly used for web
localization today) contains precise enough values for use with
emergency services. To make this determination, each value in the
database woud be tested to see if it falls mostly or entirely within
a given filter region. Note, however, that this test does not
address concerns about the accuracy of location information, i.e.,
the probability that the caller is actually contained within the
specified uncertainty region.
Note that the requirements for containment in a filter region differ
between these two use cases. When precise location is known, the
rough location that is returned MUST be contained within a single
filter region; otherwise, there will be an increased risk of mis-
routing. When the location server starts with imprecise location, it
may choose location values that are not entirely within one filter
region. The distribution of the imprecise location value among
filter regions corresponds to the risk that LoST routing will provide
incorrect information, so the choice of location value should balance
the risk of incorrect routing against the additional time needed to
obtain more precise location (which can translate to a delay in call
setup). In this case, it may not even be possible for a location
server to return a location value that is entirely within a single
filter region.
5. Additional Requirements for Networks and Endpoints
When a location provider wishes to deliver endpoints location
information that is below its maximum available precision while still
supporting emergency calling, it MUST provide to the endpoint a
location (by value) that is sufficient for emergency call routing (as
defined above) and MUST provide a location reference (i.e., a URI)
that can subsequently be used by authorized parties to obtain more
precise information about the location of the endpoint. The endpoint
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then can then use both the location value and the location reference
to request emergency services and other location-based services
(LBS).
This arrangement allows the client to provide rough location (by
value) to any entity, and to provide precise location (by reference)
to authorized parties. An assumption of this model, of course, is
that emergency authorities are authorized by the location provider to
receive precise location. Location providers may also authorize
other entities to receive precise location information (e.g.,
commercial services that have agreed to pay for location).
Authorization policy for location URIs is set by the referenced
location server; a mechanism for clients to request information about
this policy is described in [9].
ED-84: When an endpoint has access to location both by value and by
reference, it MUST include both forms of geolocation in the SIP
INVITE message initiating an emergency call, each in a separate
Geolocation header. The endpoint SHOULD include a Geolocation-
Routing header with the value "yes".
AN-30: Networks providing imprecise location MUST also provide
location by reference.
AN-31: Networks providing imprecise location SHOULD provide DHCP-
based LoST discovery, advertising a LoST server that is authorized
to dereference location URIs issued by the network's LIS.
The overall procedure for placing an emergency call is identical to
that described in [5]. In particular, the endpoint requirements in
Sections 8 and 9 of [1] still apply to an endpoint that receives
imprecise location, with the above modification (use of the location
URI in LoST).
In addition, an endpoint that receives location both by value and by
reference from its location provider MUST include both the location
value and the location reference in the SIP INVITE message that
initiates an emergency call, as specified in [10]. Note that this
process crucially relies on the location value having sufficient
precision for routing emergency calls (see Section 3 for techniques
to ensure the location value is suitable for emergency call routing).
When a PSAP receives a SIP INVITE that contains both a location value
and a location reference, and the value is too imprecise for use in
dispatch then the PSAP SHOULD dereference the LbyR to obtain more
precise information. In turn, the location provided by the location
provider SHOULD allow access by all PSAPs whose service boundaries
overlap with the region served by the location provider. This means
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that either the provider must supply a reference that can be
dereferenced by any party, or else the provider must establish
explicit authentication and authorization relationships with all
PSAPs in its service area. It is RECOMMENDED that location providers
establish similar relationships with other PSAPs in adjoining
jursidictions -- even if their service regions do not overlap with
the location provider's -- in case such a PSAP needs access to
precise location information, for example, if it is acting as a
backup for one of the location provider's normal PSAPs.
6. Acknowledgements
This document generalizes the concept of "rough location" that was
originally discussed in the context of the location hiding problem.
This concept was put forward by Henning Schulzrinne and Andy Newton,
among many others, in a long-running ECRIT discussion. Thanks to
Hannes Tschofenig and Martin Thomson for detailed reviews of this
document.
7. Security Considerations
The use of imprecise location provides a security trade-off for
location providers. When location providers are required to provide
location in support of emergency services, they have to balance that
requirement against the risk that location information will be
disclosed to an unauthorized party. The use of location
configuration protocols inherently introduces some risk that an
entity other than the device will be able to masquerade as the device
(e.g., another host behind the same NAT or malicious software on the
host) [11]. In some cases, the location provider may not authorize
the device itself to access precise location. At the same time,
because endpoints can roam between networks, it is operationally
difficult to have strong client authentication for LCPs.
Using of rough location to support emergency calling enables a
location provider to provide low-precision location with low
assurance (e.g., without client authentication)and high-precision
location with higher assurance. Because lower-precision location
generally has lower value -- to location providers and LBS providers
as a commercial asset, and to devices as private information -- this
trade-off allows a location provider to avoid the cost of protecting
location with high-assurance access controls when this location has
low value.
However, in order to support emergency services, location providers
cannot provide only low-precision location; they also have to provide
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PSAPs with access to high-precision location information. Because
PSAPs require high-precision location for emergency response, a
location provider that normally provides imprecise location to
clients MUST also provide them a location URI that a PSAP can use to
obtain high-precision location. This constraint means that the
provided URI MUST have either no access control at all or a policy
that allows access by appropriate PSAPs and other emergency response
systems, e.g., ESRPs. That is, if such a location URI is access
controlled, then the location provider MUST be able to authenticate
requests from PSAPs.
The use of location by reference introduces some risk that the
reference will be used by an attacker to gain unauthorized access to
the device's location. These risks are not specific to emergency
service, however; general risks and mitigations for location by
reference are discussed in [12]
As described in Section 4 above, the location provider choosing to
provide a less precise location than a known location has a
significant amount of choice in deciding which location to provide:
Any location that contains the known location and is in the same
filter region will do. When the provider is reducing precision for
privacy purposes, there is a some privacy benefit to choosing a
random location meeting these criteria. If a watcher is interested
in whether or not the endpoint is moving, an imprecise location may
still reveal that fact if it is constant when the endpoint is at
rest. If the provided location is randomized each time it is
provided, then the watcher is unable to obtain even this level of
information. An algorithm for securely fuzzing a device's location
can be found in [13]; for emergency services, the additional
constraint must be added that the fuzzed location must remain in the
same filter region as the original.
8. IANA Considerations
This document requests that IANA register a new PIDF-LO 'method'
token in the registry defined by RFC 4119 [4]
area-representative: Location chosen as a representative of a region
in which the device is located; may not be the device's location.
9. References
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9.1. Normative References
[1] Rosen, B. and J. Polk, "Best Current Practice for
Communications Services in support of Emergency Calling",
draft-ietf-ecrit-phonebcp-20 (work in progress),
September 2011.
[2] Hardie, T., Newton, A., Schulzrinne, H., and H. Tschofenig,
"LoST: A Location-to-Service Translation Protocol", RFC 5222,
August 2008.
[3] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement
Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
[4] Peterson, J., "A Presence-based GEOPRIV Location Object
Format", RFC 4119, December 2005.
9.2. Informative References
[5] Rosen, B., Schulzrinne, H., Polk, J., and A. Newton, "Framework
for Emergency Calling Using Internet Multimedia", RFC 6443,
December 2011.
[6] Schulzrinne, H., Liess, L., Tschofenig, H., Stark, B., and A.
Kuett, "Location Hiding: Problem Statement and Requirements",
RFC 6444, January 2012.
[7] Schulzrinne, H., "Location-to-URL Mapping Architecture and
Framework", RFC 5582, September 2009.
[8] Thomson, M. and J. Winterbottom, "Representation of Uncertainty
and Confidence in PIDF-LO",
draft-thomson-geopriv-uncertainty-07 (work in progress),
March 2012.
[9] Barnes, R., Thomson, M., Winterbottom, J., and H. Tschofenig,
"Location Configuration Extensions for Policy Management",
draft-barnes-geopriv-policy-uri-02 (work in progress),
November 2010.
[10] Polk, J., Rosen, B., and J. Peterson, "Location Conveyance for
the Session Initiation Protocol", RFC 6442, December 2011.
[11] Tschofenig, H. and H. Schulzrinne, "GEOPRIV Layer 7 Location
Configuration Protocol: Problem Statement and Requirements",
RFC 5687, March 2010.
[12] Marshall, R., "Requirements for a Location-by-Reference
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Mechanism", RFC 5808, May 2010.
[13] Schulzrinne, H., Tschofenig, H., Cuellar, J., Polk, J., Morris,
J., and M. Thomson, "Geolocation Policy: A Document Format for
Expressing Privacy Preferences for Location Information",
draft-ietf-geopriv-policy-26 (work in progress), June 2012.
[14] Thomson, M. and K. Wolf, "Describing Boundaries for Civic
Addresses", draft-thomson-ecrit-civic-boundary-02 (work in
progress), January 2011.
Authors' Addresses
Richard Barnes
BBN Technologies
9861 Broken Land Pkwy, Suite 400
Columbia, MD 21046
USA
Phone: +1 410 290 6169
Email: rbarnes@bbn.com
Matt Lepinski
BBN Technologies
10 Moulton St
Cambridge, MA 02138
USA
Phone: +1 617 873 5939
Email: mlepinski@bbn.com
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