A protocol for communicating information about the current physical location of a user.
NOTICE: This JEP is currently within Last Call or under consideration by the Jabber Council for advancement to the next stage in the JSF standards process. Final voting results should be available within several weeks.
Status: Proposed
Type: Standards Track
Number: 0112
Version: 0.5
Last Updated: 2004-05-11
JIG: Standards JIG
Approving Body: Jabber Council
Dependencies: XMPP Core, JEP-0060
Supersedes: None
Superseded By: None
Short Name: physloc
Email: stpeter@jabber.org
JID: stpeter@jabber.org
This Jabber Enhancement Proposal is copyright 1999 - 2004 by the Jabber Software Foundation (JSF) and is in full conformance with the JSF's Intellectual Property Rights Policy <http://www.jabber.org/jsf/ipr-policy.php>. This material may be distributed only subject to the terms and conditions set forth in the Open Publication License, v1.0 or later (the latest version is presently available at <http://www.opencontent.org/openpub/>).
The preferred venue for discussion of this document is the Standards-JIG discussion list: <http://mail.jabber.org/mailman/listinfo/standards-jig>.
The Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) is defined in the XMPP Core and XMPP IM specifications contributed by the Jabber Software Foundation to the Internet Standards Process, which is managed by the Internet Engineering Task Force in accordance with RFC 2026. Any protocols defined in this JEP have been developed outside the Internet Standards Process and are to be understood as extensions to XMPP rather than as an evolution, development, or modification of XMPP itself.
The keywords "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119.
This JEP defines an extension mechanism for capturing "extended presence" information about a user's current physical location. The information structures defined herein are intended to provide a semi-structured format for describing a location that may change fairly frequently (e.g., one's location on a campus or in a large building) in situations where the user or application does not possess, or does not wish to communicate, detailed latitude/longitude data of the type defined in User Geolocation [1].
Information about the user's location is provided by the user and propagated on the network by the user's client. The information is structured by means of an <physloc/> element that is qualified by the 'http://jabber.org/protocol/physloc' namespace. The location information itself is provided as the XML character data of the following children of the <physloc/> element:
Table 1: Child Elements
| Element | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|
| <country/> | The nation where the user is located | USA |
| <region/> | An administrative region of the nation, such as a state or province | New York |
| <locality/> | A locality within the administrative region, such as a town or city | New York City |
| <area/> | A named area such as a campus or neighborhood | Central Park |
| <street/> | A thoroughfare within the locality, or a crossing of two thoroughfares | 34th and Broadway |
| <building/> | A specific building on a street or in an area | The Empire State Building |
| <floor/> | A particular floor in a building | 102 |
| <room/> | A particular room in a building | Observatory |
| <text/> | A catch-all element that captures any other information about the user's location | Northwest corner of the lobby |
| <url/> | A URL that describes the current location | A MaqQuest page |
The <physloc/> information SHOULD be communicated by means of Publish-Subscribe [2]. Because physical location information is not pure presence information and can change independently of the user's availability, it SHOULD NOT be provided as an extension to <presence/>.
Example 1. User Publishes Address
<iq type='set'
from='stpeter@jabber.org/laptop'
to='pubsub.jabber.org'
id='publish1'>
<pubsub xmlns='http://jabber.org/protocol/pubsub'>
<publish node='generic/stpeter-loc'>
<item id='current'>
<physloc xmlns='http://jabber.org/protocol/physloc'>
<country>Austria</country>
<locality>Vienna</locality>
<building>Vienna International Centre</building>
<text>At IETF 57</text>
</physloc>
</item>
</publish>
</pubsub>
</iq>
The location information is then delivered to all subscribers:
Example 2. Activity is Delivered to All Subscribers
<message
from='pubsub.jabber.org'
to='jer@jabber.org/silver'>
<event xmlns='http://jabber.org/protocol/pubsub#event'>
<items node='generic/stpeter-physloc'>
<item id='current'>
<physloc xmlns='http://jabber.org/protocol/physloc'>
<country>Austria</country>
<locality>Vienna</locality>
<building>Vienna International Centre</building>
<text>At IETF 57</text>
</physloc>
</item>
</items>
</event>
</message>
.
.
.
As mentioned in JEP-0060, the stanza containing the event notification or payload MAY also include 'replyto' data (as specified by the Extended Stanza Addressing [3] protocol) to provide an explicit association between the published data and the user:
Example 3. Event notification with extended stanza addressing
<message
from='pubsub.jabber.org'
to='jer@jabber.org/silver'>
<event xmlns='http://jabber.org/protocol/pubsub#event'>
<items node='generic/stpeter-physloc'>
<item id='current'>
<physloc xmlns='http://jabber.org/protocol/physloc'>
<country>Austria</country>
<locality>Vienna</locality>
<building>Vienna International Centre</building>
<text>At IETF 57</text>
</physloc>
</item>
</items>
</event>
<addresses xmlns='http://jabber.org/protocol/address'>
<address type='replyto' jid='juliet@capulet.com'/>
</addresses>
</message>
It is imperative to control access to location information, at least by default. Imagine that a stalker got unauthorized access to this information, with enough accuracy and timeliness to be able to find the target person. This scenario could lead to loss of life, so please take access control checks seriously. A user SHOULD take care in approving subscribers and in characterizing his or her current physical location.
This JEP requires no interaction with the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) [4].
Upon advancement of this proposal to a status of Draft, the Jabber Registrar [5] shall add the 'http://jabber.org/protocol/physloc' namespace to its registry of protocol namespaces.
<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
<xs:schema
xmlns:xs='http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema'
targetNamespace='http://jabber.org/protocol/physloc'
xmlns='http://jabber.org/protocol/physloc'
elementFormDefault='qualified'>
<xs:element name='physloc'>
<xs:complexType>
<xs:sequence minOccurs='0'>
<xs:element name='country' minOccurs='0' type='xs:string'/>
<xs:element name='region' minOccurs='0' type='xs:string'/>
<xs:element name='locality' minOccurs='0' type='xs:string'/>
<xs:element name='area' minOccurs='0' type='xs:string'/>
<xs:element name='street' minOccurs='0' type='xs:string'/>
<xs:element name='building' minOccurs='0' type='xs:string'/>
<xs:element name='floor' minOccurs='0' type='xs:string'/>
<xs:element name='room' minOccurs='0' type='xs:string'/>
<xs:element name='text' minOccurs='0' type='xs:string'/>
<xs:element name='url' minOccurs='0' type='xs:string'/>
</xs:sequence>
</xs:complexType>
</xs:element>
</xs:schema>
1. JEP-0080: User Geolocation <http://www.jabber.org/jeps/jep-0080.html>.
2. JEP-0060: Publish-Subscribe <http://www.jabber.org/jeps/jep-0060.html>.
3. JEP-0033: Extended Stanza Addressing <http://www.jabber.org/jeps/jep-0033.html>.
4. The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) is the central coordinator for the assignment of unique parameter values for Internet protocols, such as port numbers and URI schemes. For further information, see <http://www.iana.org/>.
5. The Jabber Registrar maintains a list of reserved Jabber protocol namespaces as well as registries of parameters used in the context of protocols approved by the Jabber Software Foundation. For further information, see <http://www.jabber.org/registrar/>.
END