Label Translation

Label translation occurs whenever programs manipulate labels. For example, when a program such as getlabel(1) gets the label of a file, before the label can display to the user, the binary representation of the label must be translated into human-readable form. The Trusted Solaris system permits label translations only if the calling process's sensitivity label dominates the label to be translated. If a process attempts to translate a label that the process' SL does not dominate, the translation is disallowed. The sys_trans_label privilege overrides this restriction.

So, for example, when a program has the sys_trans_label privilege in its effective privilege set, the program can translate labels that dominate its process label.