The Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency (DCSA) reached a milestone announcement this month – 100% enrollment of the Department of Defense security clearance population into its continuous vetting (CV) program. That includes service members, DoD civilians and contractors. The application and investigation process doesn’t change – and the Federal Investigative Standards and adjudicative guidelines remain the same – but now the cleared workforce is being continuously vetted, versus episodic investigations only.
“Once an individual has been investigated and adjudicated, then they are automatically enrolled in continuous vetting,” said Heather Green, director of the Vetting Risk Operations Center, DCSA.
The CV milestone comes as DCSA marks its two year anniversary. But Green points out that the milestone isn’t one for DCSA alone, but falls under the government’s Trusted Workforce 2.0 initiative.
“Well before DCSA was stood up in 2019 policy makers have really hard to design what that reformed personnel vetting policy should be,” said Green. “One of the central components of that is vetting…Trusted Workforce 2.0 was really a holistic, whole of government personnel security reform effort that is involved in overhauling the vetting process.”
Key to Trusted Workforce 2.0 is replacing periodic reinvestigations with the CV program. This month, DCSA reached Trusted Workforce 1.25, which is the enrollment of the DoD cleared population into three “high-value data sets.” That includes criminal and financial databases. With Trusted Workforce 1.5, security clearance holders will be enrolled in four additional data categories. DCSA plans to meet that milestone by the end of Fiscal Year 2022.
Trusted Workforce as a Service
In addition to the DoD population, DCSA is also offering its Trusted Workforce 1.25 solution as an option for approximately 30 other government agencies. Its a method for the government to streamline resources, but also a means to accomplish another aspect of the personnel security reform effort – improved reciprocity and the ‘one clearance’ concept – the idea of ensuring that once an individual has been cleared, they’re able to maintain eligibility as they transfer between and within agencies and positions.
Green emphasized that because individuals don’t necessarily stay in the some agency across a career anymore, “it’s really important to have one CV solution across the enterprise.” A person will be able to ‘transfer’ their clearance eligibility with them – but also any previous CV alerts or information.
The ‘real time’ aspect of CV ensures agencies can “identify risks earlier and take action in real time.” VROC has been able to identify potential issues faster, which Green says is the “ultimate goal of the CV program.”
Self Reporting and Continuous Vetting
Just because the government is identifying risks earlier through CV doesn’t mean previous self reporting policies disappear – in fact, they’re more important than ever for security clearance holders looking to maintain their eligibility. While in the past an individual may have failed to report an issue like a DUI, bankruptcy, or other reportable issue, and simply wait for their next PR and hope passage of time would mitigate the issue – now the best advice for security clearance holders is to work with their security officers and be proactive.
“I will throw a plug in there for the culture of self reporting, in many of the alerts that are generating through our automated records checks, have been previously reported,” said Green.
