Summary of ANSI/NIST XML Meeting, May 8, 2008 – 

Discussion of Major Issues in Comments Received in Response 

to the March 2008 draft of ANSI/NIST-ITL 2-200X, Part 2: XML 

Version 

In Attendance... 

At NIST 

Organization Name 

BAH/US Army BTF Dale Hapeman 

DHS-OCIO Anthony Hoang 

DHS-TSA Matthew O'Neill 

FBI Patrice Yuh 

FBI Tom Hopper 

FBI Sandy McCay 

FBI Jodie Linger 

FBI Cathy Wimer 

IDTP/FBI Michael McCabe 

NIST Michael Garris 

NIST Elaine Newton 

NIST Shahram Orandi 

NIST Michael Hogan 

Noblis/DHS US-VISIT John Mayer-Splain 

SAIC/TSC CJ Lee 

State Dept. John McInerney 

The Analysis Corp./TSC Chris Holmes 

The Analysis Corp./TSC Stan Larmee 

TSC Neal Latta 

US DOJ Sudhi Umarji 

WI DOJ/A/N XML WG Chair Gerry Coleman 
On the phone 

Organization Name 

Aware Eric Sharpe 

CA DOJ Rochelle Dann 

CA DOJ Scott Lorrigan 

CA DOJ Suzanne Martin 

CA DOJ Rick McFarland 

CA DOJ David Woo 

Comnetix, Inc. Henri Schueler 

Cross Match Technologies Greg Cannon 

Daon Matt Swayze 

Daon Catherine Tilton 

Dept. of State Ben Alexander 

Dept. of State Joe Arrington 

Dept. of State Greg Gates 

FBI Cindy Nielson 

Florida Department of Law Enforcement Charles Schaeffer 

Florida Department of Law Enforcement Tanya Gold 

Higgins-Hermansen-Banikas, LLC Peter Higgins 

IAI AFIS Committee, Chair Peter Komarinski 

Los Angeles Co. Sheriff's Dept. T.J. Smith 

Mentalix Dale Remmers 

Motorola John Bredehoft 

Motorola Mitch Higashi 

Nebraska State Patrol Bruce Luhr 

NYS Div. of Criminal Justice Services Joyce Bellinghausen 

Raytheon Teddy Ko 

Texas Department of Public Safety Mike Lesko 

Background 

At the December 2005 ANSI/NIST workshop, it was unanimously agreed upon by the 

participants that a Part 2 XML version of the forthcoming ANSI/NIST standard (now 

known as ANSI/NIST-ITL 1-2007, or Part 1) would be developed. The XML version 

would maintain a one-to-one correspondence with the conventional Part 1 version of the 

standard. This required the inclusion of a Type 1 logical record with both mandatory and 

optional fields. This one-to-one correspondence with Part 1 was reaffirmed at an 

ANSI/NIST XML workshop held in September 2007. 

A draft XML standard document was issued last March with a call for comments. DHSOCIO and TSC submitted comments requesting primarily the elimination of the 

mandatory requirement for a Type-1 record, or alternatively, to relax the mandatory 

nature of the fields included in the Type 1 record. The changes requested would mean 

breaking the one-to-one correspondence with Part 1. 
 

A meeting/teleconference was held Thursday, May 8th at 10 AM EDT to resolve 

comments requesting this change of scope of the XML standard. Specific comments that 

prompted the meeting are noted in the list of all received comments here: 

<http://fingerprint.nist.gov/standard/xml/Comments_Received_ANX_Mar08_Draft.pdf>. 

About half of the (60+) comments ask for the scope of the XML standard to change in 

order to make the XML standard more efficient and accessible for non-law-enforcement 

applications (such as intelligence gathering or anti-terrorism screening). These requests 

are motivated by the needs of the intelligence community's use of biometric data, where 

biometric data is part of a larger data package and where some mandatory fields in Part 1 

are missing or can not be shared. 

Discussion 

Slides are available online so of the presentation that kicked off the meeting: 

<http://fingerprint.nist.gov/standard/xml/IntroPresentationY080426.pdf>. 

This was followed immediately by discussion. 

The options initially presented included: 

1 – Part 2 is an XML version of Part 1 

2 – Part 2 differs from Part 1 by removing Record Type-1 

3 – Part 2 differs from Part 1 by making Part 1 requirements optional, such as Type-1 

records and mandatory fields 

4 – Multiple levels of conformance 

5 – If meta-data not needed, use ANSI INCITS and/or ISO/IEC standards for exchanging 

data 

TSC and DHS-OCIO asked for a relaxation of the requirements of the Type-1 record 

because the data may be redundant, classified, or missing for their applications. They 

further argued that some of the mandatory data in Type-1 records should not be part of 

the biometric payload and will be included in header information in another layer. TSC 

also asked that the date and source fields in the Type-10 record be made optional because 

the data might be missing or classified. 

FBI, state and local law enforcement representatives (e.g. Texas, Florida), and DoD 

argued that there are greater than 10,000 U.S. legacy systems that would be hurt by a 

change that abandoned the one-to-one correspondence to Part 1 and that the data in Type1 records is necessary information that is part of the payload data and not just header data 

for transmitting records. Further the FBI argued that missing data is a problem for them, 

too, and that they have ways of dealing with that. The XML Work Group Chair from WI 
 

DOJ pointed out that the ANSI/NIST standard provides a format for the interchange of 

data and should not be viewed as a standard simply for biometric content. 

After some discussion in the morning, two conclusions were made: 

(1) Options 2 and 5 were not supported by any of the canvassees and 

(2) The legacy users of the standard must have at a minimum a conformance clause 

that requires one-to-one correspondence with Part 1. 

The group was asked the following: given the need for a conformance clause for one-toone correspondence with Part 1, would you allow for one or more alternative 

conformance levels? In order to answer that question, the group wanted to know what 

the alternative conformance level would look like. So the comments regarding the 

change in scope were reviewed, and the following conclusions were made: 

(1) The draft standard will be augmented so that every record type has a unique name 

so that the type of data contained within each tag will be immediately recognized. 

(Action Item 1) 

(2) The XML standard could offer some sort of guidance on how to handle 

mandatory fields when data is missing (regardless of conformance level). The 

Type-10 date field/element is an example of the type of field/element that could 

use this guidance. (Action Item 2)1 

(3) The requirements of the Type-1 record are then the only real sticking point for 

those looking for an alternative conformance level. 

(4) DHS withdrew comment 15 regarding scenarios when fingerprint resolution is 

unknown. 

(5) TSC withdrew comment 20 regarding MIME. 

So the following options were produced, discussed, and voted on: 

Options: 

A. Option 1 from above where Part 2 is an XML version of Part 1 

B. Option 1 from above (Part 2=1) but nillability guidance is included for all 

mandatory fields. (This option has only one conformance level, the same as 

presented in the March 2008 draft.) 

C. Option 4 from above with an additional alternate conformance clause where 

Type-1 is optional. (This option has two conformance clauses.) 

D. Option 4 from above with an additional alternate conformance clause where 

nilliability guidance is offered on all mandatory fields in the Type-1 record. 

(This option has two conformance clauses.) The alternative conformance clause 

would include the following text: 

“Some or all of the mandatory elements in the Type-1 record may be 

nilled by mutual agreement of the sender and receiver.” 

1

 At a minimum, guidance can be made available for 10.004 (Capture Organization) and 10.005(Date). 

CJIS may look into other date fields, e.g. Type-13. 
Conclusions 

The consensus of those present was to go with Option D, i.e. have two conformance 

levels in the standard – (1) the stricter conformance level that is currently in the draft 

standard and (2) an alternative level allowing for 'nillability' (or options for null entries) 

of mandatory fields in the Type-1 record (while still requiring the Type-1 record). Two 

objections were voiced by Patrice Yuh at the FBI and Mike McCabe at IDTP who 

preferred Option A (or 1) – that Part 2 be balloted with one-to-one correspondence with 

Part 1 (ie one conformance clause only, with no change from the March 08 draft). 

Two other changes to the draft were also agreed upon, as noted above: (1) every record 

type will have a unique name, and (2) some guidance may be offered or cited on how to 

handle some mandatory fields when data is missing (regardless of conformance level). 

The meeting was adjourned by 4:30 pm. 

The meeting was followed-up with an email to canvassees requesting their feedback on 

the consensus reached at the end of the meeting since those present at the end of the day 

on May 8th were a small subset of the voting body.