Call detail reporting for lawful surveillance

Abstract

A lawfully authorized electronic surveillance operation requires reporting of detailed call data for a variety of calls associated with the subject of the surveillance. For at least some specified calls to or from the subject, the invention provides profile data in a switching office serving the subject that causes the office to generate accounting messages for each call, essentially in the same manner as for billing, regardless of whether the calls are billable. Accounting records formed from the messages are uploaded to a server system, for processing and formatting as necessary for delivery to the law enforcement agency. The surveillance could entirely rely on these accounting records for the data reporting. In the preferred embodiments, however, the surveillance also involves monitoring of common channel signaling messages to accumulate call detail records for surveillance purposes, with respect to many calls associated with the subject. The preferred embodiment utilizes a special CLASS code set against the subject's profile in the serving end office. The CLASS code in the profile causes that office to produce the accounting messages for each of the subject's calls processed through the office that does not involve a monitored form of interoffice signaling.