17 Parental Control Service

26.2373GPPIP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) based Packet Switch Streaming (PSS) and Multimedia Broadcast/Multicast Service (MBMS) User ServiceProtocolsRelease 17TS

Tools: ARFCN - Frequency Conversion for 5G NR/LTE/UMTS/GSM

Parental Control provides parents the method to help protect their children and set restrictions while consuming PSS/MBMS user services. During PSS/MBMS Session initialization, Preventive Parental Control is executed either based on the user’s (child’s) profile and the minimum allowed age for the content, as specified in section 17.1. The parents can also temporarily block or allow a program for his/her child, as specified in section 17.2, referred as Interactive Parental Control.

The user’s profile contains the user’s age and the parents’ parental control policy. The parental control policy includes allowed program list and forbidden program list. The minimum allowed age for the content is the minimum age of the user who is allowed to watch the said content. The minimum allowed age is signalled in the service selection information by various content rating schemas.

17.1 Preventive Parental Control

17.1.1 Parental Control during PSS Session initialization

17.1.1.1 Procedure at UE

The UE SHALL support the procedure specified in sub-clause 8.2.3.2.

Upon receiving a 403 response from SCF, the UE may issue an SIP request to get the program allowed by his/her parents, as specified in sub-clause 17.2.2.

17.1.1.2 Procedure at SCF

The SCF SHALL support the procedure specified in sub-clause 8.2.3.4, with the following additions:

After checking the rights of the requested PSS service, the SCF shall further check the parental control information of the requester, by comparing the user’s profile and the minimum allowed age of the request program:

– If the minimum allowed age is lower or equal to the child’s age and the program is not in the list of forbidden programs, then the SCF shall continue the PSS session initialization as specified in sub-clause 8.2.3.4;

– If the minimum allowed age is higher than the child’s age but the program is in the list of allowed programs, then the SCF shall continue the PSS session initialization as specified in sub-clause 8.2.3.4;

– If the minimum allowed age is higher than the child’s age and the program is not in the list of allowed programs then the SCF shall respond the UE with a 403 error code;

– If the program is in the list of forbidden programs then the SCF shall respond the UE with a 403 error code.

17.1.1.3 Procedure at PSS Adapter

The PSS Adapter shall support the procedure specified in sub-clause 8.2.3.5.

17.1.2 Parental Control during MBMS Session initialization

17.1.2.1 Procedure at UE

The UE shall support the procedure specified in sub-clause 8.3.3.2.

Upon receiving a 403 response from SCF, the UE may issue an SIP request to get the program allowed by his/her parents, as specified in sub-clause 17.2.2.

17.1.2.2 Procedure at SCF

The SCF shall support the procedure specified in sub-clause 8.3.3.4, with the following additions:

After performing service authorization procedures to check the service rights of requested MBMS service, the SCF shall further check the parental control information of the requester, by comparing the user’s profile and the minimum allowed age of the request program:

– If the minimum allowed age is lower or equal to the child’s age and the program is not in the list of forbidden programs, then the SCF shall continue the MBMS session initialization as specified in sub-clause 8.3.3.4;

– If the minimum allowed age is higher than the child’s age but the program is in the list of allowed programs, then the SCF shall continue the MBMS session initialization as specified in sub-clause 8.3.3.4;

– If the minimum allowed age is higher than the child’s age and the program is not in the list of allowed programs then the SCF shall respond the UE with a 403 error code;

– If the program is in the list of forbidden programs then the SCF shall respond the UE with a 403 error code.

17.2 Interactive Parental Control service

17.2.1 Blocking

17.2.1.1 General Description

Following is a general call flow for blocking the child from a program:

Figure 36: Interactive Parental Control Service–Blocking

1 The Parent UE retrieves information about the content which is being watched by Child UE. This is achieved by the procedure defined in section 11, Blending of Presence and PSS/MBMS user services.

2 When the parent identifies that the watched content is not suitable for the child, the Parent UE issue a SIP MESSAGE to SCF, including necessary information (content identity, identities of parent and child).

3 The SCF feedback with 200 OK.

4 The SCF validates the parental control request. If the request is valid, the SCF then update the controlled use’s profile

5 If the request is valid, the SCF initiates the PSS/MBMS streaming session teardown procedure.

17.2.1.2 Procedure at Parent UE

When the parent wants to block the program the child is watching, the UE of the parent shall issue a SIP MESSAGE request for Parental Control. The content of the parental control request is:

– The request-URI shall be set to the well-known PSI for parental control service;

– The From header shall be set to the public user identity of the parent;

– The To header shall be set to the public user identity of the child;

– The content-type shall be set to "application/3gpp-ims-pss-mbms-parental-control+xml";

– The message body shall include a XML document conforming to the schema defined in Annex L, wherein the PCBlockRequest shall be presented with the following parameters:

– ChildUserID: the public user identity of the child, whom will be blocked.

– PatentUserID: the public user identity of the parent, who initiates the blocking.

– ProgramID: the identifier of the content being blocked by the parent.

17.2.1.3 Procedure at SCF

Upon receipt of a SIP MESSAGE request for Parental Control from the UE via the IM-CN Subsystem, the SCF shall identify the Content-Type associated with the MESSAGE request to determine that it is a Parental Control request. Following that the SCF shall extract the parental control information and check whether the parent has the rights to perform Parental Control on the child.

If the parent has the rights to perform Parental Control on the child, the SCF shall update the child’s profile with adding a forbidden program. Following that, the SCF initiates the PSS streaming teardown procedure as specified in section 8.2.6.1 or MBMS streaming teardown procedure as specified in sub-clause 8.3.5.

17.2.2 Allowing

17.2.2.1 Allowing in PSS Session Initialization

17.2.2.1.1 General Description

Following is a general call flow for allowing a PSS user service requested by the child:

Figure 37: Interactive Parental Control Service—Allowing a PSS user service

0 (Optional) the Child UE initiates a PSS session and is refused with 403 error.

1 The Child UE performs PSS session initialization with Parental Control Allowing Request, to request the Parent UE to allow him watching the program.

2 Upon receiving a PSS session initialization request as well as a Parental Control Allowing Request, the SCF shall validate the request.

3~4 The SCF send a Parental Control Allowing Request to the parents and the parent feedback its decision. The parent should make his decision based on service selection information related the program. Notes that this step can be done by either SIP MESSAGE message over IMS, or other means like SMS over mobile network.

5 Upon receiving the Parental Control Allowing response, the SCF shall update the user’s (child’s) profile according to the parents’ decision.

6 If the parents decide to allow the child to watch the requested program, the SCF performs PSS session initialization; otherwise the SCF shall reject the session initialization request with a 403 error.

7 Upon receiving 200 OK, the Parent UE setup the media path between the PSS server accordingly.

17.2.2.1.2 Procedure at Child UE

The Child UE shall support the procedure specified in section 8.2.3.2.

To acquire parents’ permission to watch the program, the message body of session initialization request shall also include a XML document as Parental Control Allowing Request. The XML document shall conform to the schema as defined in Annex L, with the following additions:

– The XML document shall be "application/3gpp-ims-pss-mbms-parental-control+xml"

– In the XML document, the PCAllowingRequest shall be presented with the following parameters:

– ChildUserID: the public user identity of the child, whom will be blocked.

– PatentUserID: the public user identity of the parent, who initiates the blocking.

– ProgramID: the identifier of the content being blocked by the parent.

17.2.2.1.3 Procedure at Parent UE

Upon receiving a SIP MESSAGE, the Parent UE shall identify it is a parental control request by the Content Type in the message header and feedback 200 OK response immediately. Following that the Parent UE shall extract the parent control request information.

To accept the Parent Control Allowing Request, the Parent UE shall not change the XML document and send it back in a SIP MESSAGE message to the SCF.

To refuse the Parent Control Allowing Request, the Parent UE shall delete the ProgramID in the XML document and send it back in a SIP MESSAGE message to the SCF.

17.2.2.1.4 Procedure at SCF

The SCF shall support the procedure specified in section 17.1.1.3, with the following addition:

If there is a Parent Control Allowing request XML document, the SCF shall extract the parental control information. Following that, the SCF shall forward the request to the Parent UE according to the request and waiting for the response. This can be done either by SIP MESSAGE exchange, or by other means like SMS over mobile network which is out of scope of this specification.

For the former case, the SCF shall issue a SIP MESSAGE to the Parent UE and waiting for response. The SIP MESSAGE shall be built as following:

– Request URI shall be set to the well know PSI for parental control service.

– To header shall be set to the public user identity of the parent;

– From header shall be set to the public user identity of the child;

– Content Type shall be set to "application/3gpp-ims-pss-mbms-parental-control+xml"

– The message body shall include the XML document received from the child.

Upon receiving a SIP MESSAGE, the SCF shall identify it is a parental control request by the Content Type in the message header and feedback 200 OK response immediately. Following that the SCF shall extract the parent control request information and check the rights of the parent and then update the child’s profile accordingly.

After that the SCF shall perform the session initialization and respond the Parent UE as per sub-clause 8.2.3.4.

17.2.2.2 Allowing in MBMS Session Initialization

17.2.2.2.1 General Description

Following is a general call flow for allowing a MBMS user service requested by the child:

Figure 38: Interactive Parental Control Service—Allowing a MBMS user service

0 (Optional) the Child UE initiates a MBMS session and is refused with 403 error.

1 The Child UE performs MBMS session initialization with Parental Control Allowing Request, to request the Parent UE to allow him watching the program.

2 Upon receiving a PSS session initialization request as well as a Parental Control Allowing Request, the SCF shall validate the request.

5 Upon receiving the Parental Control Allowing response, the SCF shall update the user’s (child’s) profile according to the parents’ decision.

6 If the parents decide to allow the child to watch the requested program, the SCF performs MBMS session initialization; otherwise the SCF shall reject the session initialization request with a 403 error.

7 Upon receiving 200 OK, the Parent UE can start receiving the MBMS Streaming session data when transmitted by the BM-SC.UPF.

17.2.2.2.2 Procedure at Child UE

The Child UE shall support the procedure specified in sub-clause 8.3.3.2.

– The XML document shall be "application/3gpp-ims-pss-mbms-parental-control+xml"

– In the XML document, the PCAllowingRequest shall be presented with the following parameters:

– ChildUserID: the public user identity of the child, whom will be blocked.

– PatentUserID: the public user identity of the parent, who initiates the blocking.

– ProgramID: the identifier of the content being blocked by the parent.

17.2.2.2.3 Procedure at Parent UE

To accept the Parent Control Allowing Request, the Parent UE shall not change the XML document and send it back in a SIP MESSAGE message to the SCF.

To refuse the Parent Control Allowing Request, the Parent UE shall delete the ProgramID in the XML document and send it back in a SIP MESSAGE message to the SCF.

17.2.2.2.4 Procedure at SCF

The SCF shall support the procedure specified in section 17.2.1.3, with the following addition:

For the former case, the SCF shall issue a SIP MESSAGE to the Parent UE and waiting for response. The SIP MESSAGE shall be built as following:

– Request URI shall be set to the well know PSI for parental control service.

– To header shall be set to the public user identity of the parent;

– From header shall be set to the public user identity of the child;

– Content Type shall be set to "application/3gpp-ims-pss-mbms-parental-control+xml"

– The message body shall include the XML document received from the child.

After that the SCF shall perform the session initialization and respond the Parent UE as per sub-clause 8.3.3.4.