What’s the Government’s New Online Clearance Application?

Hi, I am attorney Sean Bigley, and I’m here with my co-host Lindy Kyzer of ClearanceJobs.com. We’re talking this segment about the new e-App, or as many of you lovingly know it, the e-QIP 2.0, I guess I should say. Lindy, this is another new development in the world of security clearances. I guess why don’t we start with what is the eApp? I’m sure a lot of people listening have heard about it, maybe they’ve kind of heard some whispers or some rumors that this is coming down the pike, but what is it?

So it is the brand spanking new form that we’re all going to use to fill out our security clearance applications. It’s a part of the new security clearance system of record that is used within specifically the Department of Defense, the National Background Investigations Services kind of enable this eApp system. We’ve been talking about it for years. It’s like welcome to the pace of government. I think they talked about the rollout of eApp like seven years ago. I don’t want to know how many years ago, because we’ve known eQIP needed to be updated for a while, especially post OPM data breach, there was kind of this huge, everybody’s looking around like, “What exactly are the IT systems that we’re using to enable our elaborate security clearance process? Oh, maybe those are due for an overhaul.”

eApp is a part of that. It’s definitely a better form. If you look at the two application systems side by side, there’s just a lot of really simple things in eApp, like it will automatically save your information. Okay, the e-QIP, it won’t even save, it does not even save your information so if you’re filling it out and it times out, it will not save your information. That’s my experience with e-QIP. eApp has simple things that will make you want to pull out less of your hair as you’re filling out your SF86 or 85P or whatever you’re doing for a public trust or security clearance application, and it will be rolled out across all of industry this year. It’s largely used for, again, the 95%-ish percent of government agencies that use, again, DoD’s kind of system process or the agencies that work through DC A and now it’s going to be rolled out to those industry customers who will also be using e-App. Welcome to, I want to say it’s not the 21st century because we’ve been talking about this form for so long, but welcome to the form of the last century that we’re implementing in this century. Ta-da.

Well, and I think it’s also important to clarify for people here because some of the confusion that I’ve heard about this is people’s misinterpretation that this is the new form or the new PVQ that is being rolled out, but in fact, there’s two distinct and big changes that are happening to the background investigation process this year. One is the new eApp, which is, as you mentioned, basically just the new platform for filling out electronically the background investigation form, the SF86, the SF85, the SF85P, whatever it is that you’re filling out. Then separately, we have the PVQ, which is this update to the form itself where they’re kind of melding them all together and it’s going to be this A, B, C part type form where they say, “Okay, based on your position sensitivity or the clearance you’re going for, you’re going to fill out part A, part B, part C, et cetera,” so it’s going to merge them all together. We’ve got these two completely separate, albeit related updates that are happening really in the same timeframe and I think it’s causing some people confusion as to what’s what.

But I think the other thing, Lindy, about how long this has taken, I know they say that this is happening this year, but have you actually seen it happen yet? Have you seen anybody using the new eApp system or is this still kind of we’re in a holding pattern?

Oh, no. eApp is happening. For a long time I said that, and you shouldn’t have listened to me because it was fake news, it wasn’t happening. But now it really is. I know they had pilots throughout a couple of key government customers, so folks who were doing a lot of investigations through DCSA, some industry partners, they kind of did some pilots rolling out to them. We saw some different government agencies that were doing pilots. There’s a cool chart, so maybe I’ll embed that with the article we do about this podcast, but PAC PMO has released showing that e-App versus e-QIP enrollment, right now it’s a really tiny little dot with not as much, but what we’re going to see over the course of this year, kind of similar to what we saw for continuous vetting rollout, where it kind of started it slow rolled out. The eApp, slow roll was like, whoa, slow roll because it was took forever for its rollout. But I think over the course of 2023, what we’re going to see is I anticipate full enrollment across the DOD security clearance population using eApp and eQIP going away for them. Unless NBIS blows up or something, I think that’s going to happen. Don’t quote me on it. I don’t know.

Sean, you seem skeptical. Do you think it’s going to happen?

Yeah, I mean, I’m a skeptic by nature. I think all attorneys are, but like you, I’ve been hearing this for years and every time I hear it, I kind of go, “I’ll believe it when I see it.” But if you’re starting to see it happening already, then I guess that’s a sign of progress.

One of the other things, to your earlier point about kind of the outdated technology of the old system, and believe me, I am not going to miss it, and I think most people will feel similarly, but there is sort of this weird nostalgia that I have for it largely because it reminds me of what I experienced many years ago as an investigator where we were using this horribly outdated system called PIPS to process all of our investigative related case work and any investigators listening to this who previously worked for the Office of Personnel Management will be familiar with it. This was 15 years ago, so not that long ago in the grand scheme of things, but it literally reminded me of the computer programming that we used to do when I was in middle school where you were learning how to type on these old early ’90’s Macs and the screens were black and all the type was green, and it was just so silly, outdated. When the OPM breach happened, that was the first thing that I thought about is way back then they were pitching it as, “Well, we’re still using this because it works, and if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it. It’s so antiquated that nobody’s going to be able to hack into it.”

That was literally how they were pitching it and then the breach happened, and I think everyone kind of looked at each other and went like, “Well, we saw that coming.” I think this is certainly overdue. There’s no question about that, but it is going to be a weird change for those of us who have been operating off the old eQIP system for decades.

Well, I think government knows we can only handle so much change in our processes at once, especially in something like the security clearance process, and so we have e-App happening now. But it will be using the same basic application framework that you anticipate or look for just with innovative, cutting edge solutions, like being able to save your work as you go or have a dropdown menu for zip codes. Then the real moneymaker change will be when we have the personal vetting questionnaire that will literally reduce some sections, add some sections, and create a lot more of an intuitive overall form and application. Although again, we just had a conversation about that now I’m feeling less optimistic. All of your attorney bitterness is rubbing off on me. I’m trying to be excited. I’ve drank the Kool-Aid.

I’m such a pessimist, I know. I do think it is long overdue, and I think that hopefully it’s going to be some good changes coming down the pike. But the irony here is those of us who have long been advocating for a new form, as I said earlier, there is kind of this weird nostalgia. Like, “Well, wow, it’s really changing the process. The times they are a-changing.” It makes you kind of feel old, I guess that’s the best I can say.

Yeah, eQIP had some real challenges, but I think any form of this size is going to. I do have some empathy for government because you’re looking at mean the complexity of all of the different questions that we ask as a part of the security clearance process, it is a lot, and it is trying to create a single form framework to do that. I’m not going to totally throw the government a bone. This is long overdue and we could have done better, but it is a complicated system in rolling things out, just in government, man, never moves fast.

I know. Well, as it does come online and people start to see it, hopefully we’ll get a sense as to where things are heading with not only the changes in the form itself, but also the PVQ as well, and some of the things that are happening in terms of what the government is looking at. Because I think that’s for most people, the average clearance holder, that’s really where the interest is. Yes, it’s nice to not have your information deleted mid-completion or to have some of these convenient features that a lot of us are just used to now with pre-populating things and stuff like that. That’s all great, and I don’t think anyone’s going to turn up their nose at that, but I think certainly for most people who are filling out these forms, I think the biggest interest is going to be what are the substantive changes that are coming down the pike? Because these changes with the eApp and the PVQ are kind of coming at the same time, I think really within the next couple years, few years, as people start to see the changes, I think that’s when it’s really going to be noticeable that, yeah, we’re in a new era now. It’s no longer the ’90’s.